


Reset?

by Katreal



Series: A Tale of Consequences [2]
Category: Undertale, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Undertale Genocide Run, Gen, Gender-Neutral Frisk, I'm bad at tagging things, Non-canon world building, Possession, Sans doesn't completely remember resets, Sans is aware of them though, So technically an AU, Soul Shenanigans, Spoilers - Undertale Genocide Route, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Undertale Saves and Resets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:18:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katreal/pseuds/Katreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no rewards or punishments - only consequences. </p>
<p>Direct Sequel to Continue? Sans got his reset, but it came in exchange for another promise. And we know how he is about promises. </p>
<p>/stop me/</p>
<p>Too bad the sane kid is nowhere to be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read Continue? first if you haven't! I'm afraid it won't make much sense otherwise!
> 
> Also: Any feedback on the summary is appreciated. I just tweaked it.

 

_“If we’re really friends...don’t come back.”_

Sans jerked awake, sweat rolling down his skull, bones clattering. If he had a heart it would be racing.  
The room was dim, dusty and grey. No golden light filtering through the stained glass. No blood creeping lethargically through the grooves in the tiles.

He was...alone.

Damn it. Another nightmare. He rubbed at his skull, trying to ward off the pounding headache. It’d been a long time since he’d fallen asleep in the workshop. He must have slipped off the workbench and rattled his skull against the stone tiles. What did Papyrus always tell him about falling asleep in dangerous places?

Not that he ever listened.

A chill settled into his ribcage at the thought of his brother, and he had to fight the urge to take a shortcut directly into his brother’s room. Just to make sure. The flutter of panic was familiar.

He pulled himself to his feet, gripping the edge of the cabinet with trembling fingers. He _could_ take a shortcut. He had before. Had woken his confused brother with his desperate need to reassure himself that Papyrus was okay. That he was still _there._ Papyrus always took it in good humor, although Sans knew he desperately wanted to ask why. Just like Papyrus knew Sans would never answer if he asked.

No. He would take the shortcut to his own room. Wait an--he checked the dimly glowing numbers sitting on the workbench--hour or so despite Papyrus’ yelling and knocking on the door, and _then_ saunter down to breakfast. Papyrus would scold him for being late. He’d call him lazy, strongly suggest he recalibrate his puzzles--and Sans had to admit he should probably dig up a new copy of the word search one of these days. The one out there was almost half a year old. Even a baby bones could do it. Maybe a crossword this time… heh. That would rile Papyrus up like nothing else.

It would be...normal.

Cold fire danced in his mind. The golden glow of the final corridor. A yellow tear streaked face--Alphys? That was new.

He desperately needed normal right now. For however long it lasted this time. He was never sure.

But first… Sans carefully counted the drawers on the bench. He pulled open the last one. The dusty photo album looked the same as ever. With a practiced motion he flipped it open, doing his best to ignore the pressure building behind his skull.

_The sunset._ _So many smiling faces._

A jolt of sadness spiked through him as he traced each one, some, like Pap, Undyne, and Alph he knew quite well. Others...were only familiar enough to make his soul ache.

He shook his head and grabbed a pen out of the drawer, adding another hashmark below the photo. Seven. This was the seventh full reset since that photo. He’d stopped bothering to try and record the smaller ones. They all ended up blurred together.

  1. _Guess it was my fault this time, eh?_



The thought bubbled to the forefront. Sans let it go. He turned the page.

And froze.

There was the scribbled drawing. The don’t forget.

But beneath it…

_stop me_

A child’s scrawl.

“Kiddo…”

He didn’t realize he was clenching his fist until the pen burst, painting his bones black.

_Black._

_Black cracks, spiderwebbing through red. Tearing it apart._

Sans dropped the mangled remains of the pen, still wet ink splattering onto the pages. He didn’t care. He wanted to wretch, the magical bile building up behind his frozen grin.

_Why._

_Why_ did it feel so raw this time? What had been different? Why did his chest feel like someone had stabbed him straight through? Like his soul wanted to splinter into pieces?

_You died._

The answer that came to him was a quiet whisper he didn’t want to acknowledge.

Sans didn’t step so much as fall out of the shortcut. He knew the map values of Snowdin better than anywhere else. His lumpy laundry covered mattress was waiting for him. Sans curled in on himself.

_...stop me…_

...from what? His memories were in pieces, fragments mixing with nightmares mixing with the bone deep ache reverberating through time and space.

Almost… As if it were thrumming along with a phantom heartbeat.

The kid’s face, beaming in the light of the sun. The photo splattered with ink, darkness creeping across the page.

A kid he hadn’t met yet. And didn’t remember ever _properly_ meeting. Just a face in a photograph and a half remembered promise.

_...stop me…_

_...please…_

He eventually just gave up and fell asleep. Either he’d wake up feeling better, or it’d be another nightmare. Couldn’t get much worse.

_Bang._

_Bang._

_Tiny fists against metal. Every hit somehow resonated in his bones._

“I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE BROTHER!”

...no...not metal. The door.

Papyrus’ heavy glove against the locked wood. It rattled in its frame but didn’t budge. Sans stuffed his head under his ratty pillow. Aching. At least the rest of him didn’t feel like it was going to fall apart at a moment’s notice. Just his skull.

_Bang._

He winced.

_Bang._

_Bang._

“SANS! IF YOU DON’T ANSWER I’M GOING TO KNOCK THIS DOOR DOWN!”

“Bro--I’m---” Sans forced himself to sit up, wincing as the incessant knocking came again. His limbs felt like lead, but he used one of those leaden arms to support his still aching head, the pressure from the bones in his hand helped. A little. He could focus on it instead of the aching.

Damn it. He was not looking forward to the next reset--because there was _always_ a next reset--if _this_ is what it was going to be like from now on.

As if he needed another reason to avoid dy--

_Crash._

“...that’s one way to make an entrance, bro.” Sans finished somewhat lamely, eyeing the splinters of what remained of his door after his brother was through with it. Why was it so dark anyway? How early _was_ it? Even with the door wide open it was barely any brighter in here. “I thought you were kidding about the door.”

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS NEVER JOKES ABOUT SUCH THINGS, BROTHER!” Papyrus was a silhouette in the door. Strong and tall, a white bone fading out of the clenched fist he’d conjured to mutilate the poor barrier. The image was so... _Papyrus_ it nearly made Sans cry.  “IF YOU DIDN’T LOCK YOUR DOOR I WOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED TO KNOCK IT DOWN.”

“If I didn’t lock my door, you’d be in here cleaning everyday.” Sans pointed out, trying to put the ache in his skull to the back of his mind. At least for now. This was _Pap._ He didn’t want to worry him.

He didn’t remember the nightmares well. But one thing always stood out of the worst of them all.

Pap was _gone._

They were the ones that scared him the most.

“I REALLY WISH YOU’D LET ME, SANS. THIS PLACE LOOKS LIKE A DISASTER.” His brother harrumphed, crossing his arms. Sans saw his head turn, his jaw clench further, and Sans couldn’t help a chuckle. He was probably trying to figure out the tornado in the corner. “STILL, I AM GLAD NOTHING IS AMISS. YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW WORRIED I WAS WHEN I GOT THAT CALL THIS MORNING.”

_Crack._

“...phone call?”

Something felt wrong.

This whole conversation was wrong.

“I DIDN’T EXPECT IT EITHER. I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF PREPARING A DELICIOUS BREAKFAST TO TRY AND TEMPT YOU OUT OF BED WHEN I GOT A CALL FROM UNDYNE OF ALL PEOPLE. I THOUGHT FOR SURE SHE WAS CALLING TO COMPLIMENT ME ON MY PUZZLES AND DEDICATION AND MASTERFUL COOKING SKILLS, BUT INSTEAD SHE STARTED DEMANDING TO KNOW WHAT YOU DID! I ASSURED HER YOU WERE TOO LAZY TO BE DOING ANYTHING BAD, AND THEN SHE STARTED YELLING ABOUT KILLING YOU FOR MAKING ALPHYS CRY--”

...everything, even his brother’s voice faded.

_...making **ALPHYS** cry?_

_“S-Sans p-please. N-not you t-too.”_

“--AND I ASSURED HER THAT WHILE I KNOW YOU LIKE A PRANK NOW AND THEN, YOU NEVER WOULD MALICIOUSLY TRICK SOMEONE. WHICH GOT ME WORRIED YOU ACTUALLY _HAD_ GOTTEN--SANS?”

He blinked, trying to shake away the deja vu before realizing how bad an idea it was with the way his head was hurting.

Ow.

“I’m ok Pap.” He hoped he managed to stop the wince in time. “Really. Just--tired.”

“BROTHER. LOOK AT ME.”

Papyrus’ long legs meant he only had to take a couple steps to cross the room, and soon he was kneeling in front of the laundry covered mattress. Sans tried to look away, but Papyrus’ surprisingly quiet “Sans.” stopped him.

A red gloved hand carefully touched Sans’ skull, right above his left eye-socket, drawing back instantly when Sans couldn’t suppress the flinch at the blossom of pain it caused. “YOU ARE HURT.”

“It’s no big, bro. Honest.” Sans felt more than saw the wispy green magic building around Papyrus’ fingertips, heaving a sigh. “Just fell, that’s all. You know me, eh? I’m hard-headed. It’ll be fine.”

“YOUR SKULL IS _CRACKED_ SANS. EVEN YOUR EYE-LIGHT IS FLICKERING! YOU NEED TO BE MORE CAREFUL.”

...Oh. That might be why everything was so dim. Sans didn’t protest any further. He tried not to think at all about how it happened or why it got there. All that mattered was his brother’s intense concentration as the weak green magic seeped into the cracks, sealing them.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE COME TO ME, SANS. I MAY STILL BE LEARNING BUT IT HURTS TO KNOW MY OWN BROTHER DOESN’T TRUST MY HEALING.”

“It isn’t that, bro. Promise.” Sans sighed, closing his eyes as Papyrus worked, “You’re already better at it than I ever managed.”

Papyrus did his best at everything he tried. Even if the magic was opposite his affinity.

Man, his brother was cool.

“WELL THAT ISN’T HARD TO MATCH WHEN YOU GAVE UP THE FIRST DAY.” Sans could nearly see his brother’s reproachful look, “MISS BUNNY WAS SAD WHEN YOU STOPPED COMING.”

“Yea. Well. My magic doesn’t like green. I tried at least, didn’t I?”

“ONLY BECAUSE I BEGGED YOU TO.” Papyrus clucked disapprovingly. The faint tickle of warmth from the green magic faded as Papyrus drew his hand away. Much to Sans’ discomfort the headache wasn’t gone. Just...more manageable. “THERE. IT’LL PROBABLY SCAR, BUT IT’S CLOSED. WOWIE. IT ACTUALLY LOOKS REALLY COOL. LIKE A BATTLE SCAR. DO YOU THINK I SHOULD GET ONE? SUPER COOL WARRIORS HAVE SCARS. OR EYEPATCHES. LIKE UNDYNE!”

“Nah bro, you’re the coolest as it is.” _a knife to the chest, ripping a gaping scar through his battle body._ Sans forced his eyes open, frozen grin hiding the horror the memory fragment brought with it. “Think about it. Warriors only get scars cuz they couldn’t dodge right?”

Papyrus never bothered to try against the k--them. He always believed in them that much.

“I--I SUPPOSE.” Papyrus mused thoughtfully, “THE GREAT PAPYRUS SHOULD BE BOTH NIMBLE AND STRONG. SOMEONE LANDING A HIT ON SOMEONE AS GREAT AND COOL AS MYSELF WOULD BE A LEGENDARY FEAT. NYEH HEH HEH.”

“Hey, maybe they’d be too _scarred_ to even fight.”

“UGH. SANS! THAT WAS TERRIBLE!”

Sans chuckled as his brother pulled away in disgust, lurching to his feet with an irritated stomp, “AND JUST FOR THAT I’M CONFINING YOU TO YOUR BED FOR THE DAY! YOUR EYE IS STILL DIMMER THAN IT SHOULD BE AND MISS BUNNY SAYS REST AND GOOD FOOD IS THE BEST MEDICINE AFTER AN INJURY. I NEED TO DO MY ROUNDS, BUT I CAN PROMISE TO WHIP UP A BATCH OF NUTRITIOUS HOMEMADE SPAGHETTI FOR YOU TO HELP SPEED UP THE RECOVERY.”

“Hey, _Eye’d_ never gonna turn down a good nap. A little shut eye might be just the thing.”

“UGH. WHY DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AND WONDERFUL AS ME HAVE TO PUT UP WITH ALL YOUR TERRIBLE JOKES?”

“You know you’re smiling.”

“ONLY BECAUSE YOU _MUST_ BE FEELING BETTER IF YOU INSIST ON TORTURING ME WITH TERRIBLE PUNS.”

Sans merely grinned. Papyrus finally stormed off, moving the slam the door behind him before remembering it was in pieces on the floor.

Once he was gone, Sans allowed himself to collapse back to his pillow.

First the raw pain, and now physical _damage?_ His memory was foggy at the best of times, but he was sure nothing like this had happened before.

...and that phone call.

He desperately itched to steal Papyrus’ phone and find out what the hell was up with Alphys. Her remembering was impossible--wait. She had cameras set up everywhere. And he _was_ injured.

...where had he been when he fell? He’d assumed the laboratory since that’s where he woke up. But if he’d taken a shortcut…

Ah damn it his head was starting to hurt again, the room dimming further as he could only assume his eyelight winked out for a moment or two. Maybe Papyrus was right.

Maybe some rest would help.

He just hoped to whoever was listening that the kid saved before whatever happened, so he had a chance to avoid it next time. This majorly sucked.

He could afford the day. Probably. As long as he was in the forest tomorrow morning.

_...promise me…_

“Yeah, yeah, I got it kid.” Sans mumbled into his pillow. At least with his face stuffed into the fabric he didn’t have to deal with nearly being half blind.

_...stop me…_

“I guess we’ll both be having a bad time this round, eh?”

His counter remained firmly set at zero.

Taunting him.

He knew what was coming and he hated it.

There could be no waiting this time.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sans paused at the top of the stairs, listening intently to the snores coming from his brother’s room. Heavy. Loud. Interspersed with sleeping, stuttering “NYEH”s.

Yep. That was Pap all right.

Sans let his fingerbones linger on the doorknob, and then drew away, pulling his hood up over his head and mentally preparing the coordinates he wanted to step toward.

He wasn’t breaking his promise. Not really. He’d agreed to stay in bed today. Which he had. But, Papyrus was in bed and it technically wasn’t today anymore.

Step, and he was standing in front of Grillby’s, hands stuffed in his pockets against the biting cold. Snowdin was dim and quiet, although he knew some of that was the result of his damned eye. The headache had eventually receded to a constant, but tolerable pressure, but it hadn’t fixed the issue of his eyelight malfunctioning, and still left the world looking like someone had stuck a lampshade over his head, and the bulb liked to flicker more often than not.

Still, at least he knew the light spilling from the windows was glowing, painting the white snow banks a bright orange and yellow. Sans had always thought it was pretty damn thematic, a tiny little flame in such a cold bleak environment.

Not that Snowdin was unwelcoming. It was actually rather cozy. But there was a reason every sign tacked “and more ice” onto the end of every location.

Okay, so maybe Sans had thought it was funny to scribble that onto the sign at the crossroads on his way back from sentry duty one day. It’d only been in washable marker, and since no one had bothered to clean it off yet he figured it wasn’t too off the mark.

_Heh._

A tiny bell chimed as he pushed the door open, the blast of air rushing out to warm his already chilled face.

It was fairly empty this time of night, the only patrons being a passed out rabbit and the smallest of the dog-squad still playing poker with itself. Sans sidled into his normal seat at the bar.

It was...quiet. Faint, soothing music drifting gently from the jukebox in the corner. Grillby didn’t take long to notice the addition, barely glancing up from the glass he was washing to reach behind the counter and pull out Sans’ usual.

He downed nearly half the bottle of ketchup in a single gulp.

“What? No fries?”

The flame elemental glanced meaningfully at the clock, giving a half shrug.

“No worries, I’m just grillin’ ya.” Sans took another, smaller swig, before placing the bottle back down on the wooden bar with a clunk. He stared down at the droplets of red clinging to the glass, leaving trails as gravity quickly worked to pull them back down to the rest.

It reminded him too much of the nightmare. Blood seeping through the grooves in the tile. He suddenly lost his appetite.

He honestly wasn’t sure what was driving him forward at this point.

A promise? To someone he might as well have never met?

A smiling face in the sunset, stained and blotted by spilled ink.

He hated making promises.

Flames crackled. The elemental offered a second round. Sans shook his head, his throat closing up at the thought of it.. “Nah. Thanks, but Pap would kill me.”

Pops and hisses as the fire danced, the smartly dressed elemental squirreled the bottle away beneath the bar. Sans almost missed the follow up question, lost as it was in the smooth jazz music from the corner.

“Eh, don’t worry about it Grillbz. He’s just worried. Ya know how Pap is.”

Yellow eyes in the shifting face flickered, the elemental gestured with his cleaning rag.

“That noticeable eh?” Sans took one hand off the the bottle, running his fingers along the curve of his skull, just above the edge of his eye socket. His finger bones followed the spiderweb of cracks, spreading both up and to the side, sealed and reduced to barely raised ridges and dips in the bone. Papyrus hadn’t done a bad job, everything considering.  “Nuthin’ exciting really. Just a fall. Pap just didn’t want me at my post today.”

The elemental’s dry response to that made him snicker, “Yea. Shocker isn’t it? First time in a long time he’s _encouraged_ me to be lazy. Gotta admit it tho, the resulting headache had been enough to make even my brand of slacking miserable. I probably wouldn’t have made a good sentry, one eye’d or no.”

The elemental’s fire-wreathed head bobbed sympathetically.

“So. Did I miss anything while I was tied up today?” Sans continued after a few minutes of soft jazz. The fire elemental shrugged, setting aside the glass he’d just finished drying and adding it, still slightly steaming, to the pile beside him. Business as usual.

Sans hadn’t thought so. It still felt early. He’d prefer to finish this before the other sentries got involved. “Just...keep an ear out okay?”

It...just slipped out. He surprised himself. He hadn’t intended on saying anything further about it. The elemental paused, hissing a question at him, embers popping.

“Just a feelin’. Honestly it’s probably nothing.” Sans assured him quickly, wondering where that came from. Grillby always got out, didn’t he?

...Sans wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Papyrus always died, and Sans hadn’t.

...until this last.

Seven full resets since he’d started recording, an uncountable number of smaller ones, and he’d finally died.

Honestly he was kinda surprised it had taken this long.

Cold fire burned in the depths of his soul, sad, hurting. It was a phantom pain, but it felt like it was trying to tear itself apart.

_You died._

No more waiting right? If he got dusted tomorrow, the first warning the town would get would be the Dog-Squad missing a poker game.

Damn. This was getting depressing even for him. “Hey Grillbz.”

The fire elemental arched a lick of flame.

“D’ya got anything sweet?” Grillby’s surprise was obvious. Sans never deviated from his usual. “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a bar, not a bakery. Just figured I’d ask.”

Something sweet might be what he needed to pick up his mood. Maybe he’d stop by the general store when it opened. Cinnamon sounded good. The idea lightened the weight on his shoulders a little. He slid off the stool, leaving the remains of the bottle where it sat. Grillby sizzled behind him, Sans glanced over his shoulder, “Just put it on my…”

He trailed off, shaking his head and reaching into the pocket of his hoodie. He counted out the GP and slid them onto the counter, keeping just enough to afford the cinnamon bunny. Wasn’t like it’d matter if it reset, but if he did end up dusted, at least Grillby wouldn’t be out completely. Just covering his bases. “That should cover about half of the tab. I’ll get the rest to you later, okay bud?”

The elemental stared at the small pile of coins in abject confusion. He crackled at Sans. Demanding.

The skeleton laughed. The grinning jokester, that was all _anyone_ was allowed to see. “Who knows? I could be doing it just to make you sizzle. Seems a bit more likely than possession, eh?”

Sans turned his back and shuffled toward the door, giving Grillby a wave and a “Night Grillbz” before pushing out into the cold.

The door swung shut behind him. Sans took a breath of frozen Snowdin air, and stepped.

The difference was night and day. Literally.

Where Grillby’s had been bright and warm even with his eye on the fritz, the depths of the constantly snow-covered wilderness was nearly total blackness without the light from the day-glow crystals, and they were still some hours away. As he walked from his sentry station toward the huge door at the beginning of the trail, Sans caught his slipper on a stone he couldn’t see. Suddenly the ground was missing for the longest moment ever, and then he was face first in the snow.

_Cold!_

The mental yelp was embarrassing. He could almost imagine the laughter if he’d had any sort of audience. Nervous giggling. Papyrus’ awkward squawk as he was torn between laughing and worry. But Sans was alone, the laughter echoing in his own head.

He shivered in his coat.

_Why doesn’t the skeleton like the wind?_

Or the cold. Or the ice. Sans could think of a number of variations. All leading back to the punch-line.

_It cuts right through them._

There was a reason most of Snowdin’s populace were fuzzy. This place got damn cold, although today’s seemed particularly piercing. He’d need to evaluate his plan, he’d need more layers if he intended to go through with this.

Leaving the undignified Sans angel behind, he followed the trail through the dark and barren trees. The bridge was coming up. Soon enough the posts of Papyrus’ gate loomed out of the darkness on either side, but Sans kept his eyes firmly on the  ground.

_Creak._

The wood shifted under his weight. Had it always been that loud? Or was it just him being hyper aware?

A fall here and...well…

Okay, to be honest he’d probably keep his head enough to initiate a shortcut before he hit the bottom of the ravine, but he’d still end up knocking his already battered skull against his lumpy mattress. He didn’t need Pap getting the bright idea he needed to tie him to the bed to keep him from hurting himself. Even Sans couldn’t take a shortcut without being able to move.

He didn’t let go of the breath he was holding until he was back on solid, snow-covered ground. Almost there.

_CRACK._

A stick breaking echoed through the trees. The scream of some distant noctournal monster.

The sound rattled in his skull. Sinking into his bones. He lifted his slipper, peering down at the fuzzy shadow in the white snow.

Yeah. Just a stick. Heavy, but just a stick.

Sans shrugged and moved on.

The great stone door loomed above him. Sans glanced over to where he knew a bush hid one of Alphys’ cameras.

Well. He’d known about that before. Not like it changed anything.

Damn it. He needed to be able to _see._

Magic flared in his right eye, Sans held out a hand, blue magic coalescing into a faintly glowing bone construct that floated above his palm. It offered a little light, as did the flame in his good eye, but the most _useful_ thing was that everything shifted back into focus.

Gotta love yellow magic.

Irritating, but Sans could roll with it. It was just yet another energy drain on his already overtaxed body. No big deal.

Sans tossed the construct into the air carelessly, directing it to float out over the unbroken snow.

Over there, there was a path worn through. Worn, but not recently.  Sans knew that little lane. He traced it in the light of the construct. It led right up to the door, with a tiny spot cleared just large enough for a bored skeleton to practice knock knock jokes.

Other than that...nothing. There were no scuff marks in the clean snow to indicate the heavy door opening. No footprints to indicate the passage of anyone since Sans last remembered being here little over a day ago.

He still had time.

Sans sighed, following his tiny trail to his practice spot, settling his back against the stone. It felt...colder than he remembered, seeping through his jacket and settling into his bones.

_Was the cold the glass, or the creature inside it?_

He weakly lifted his hand, wrapping it against the stone door. Like he always did.

“Knock knock.”

But nobody came. There was no answer.

Huddled in his jacket, Sans settled in for the long watch.

It always started here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters are posted after the next one is finished! Thank you for reading! <3


	3. Chapter 3

# Chapter 3

 

It only took a few hours after the day-glow crystals began to shine for Papyrus to track him down. Sans heard him coming. Perspective shifted as Sans quickly stepped, leaving his spot near the door an empty sad pile of snow. He could see Papyrus approaching the door through the trees.

“SANS?”

The calling continued. Sans tried to close his ears to it, but it was Papyrus. He never could.

“YOU KNOW, WHEN I CHIDE YOU TO TAKE INITIATIVE THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEAN. EVEN THE GREATEST OF SOON-TO-BE-ROYAL GUARDSMEN LIKE MYSELF KNOW TO LET AN INJURY HEAL BEFORE RETURNING TO ACTIVE DUTY.”

Sans sighed, his shoulder rolling in a shrug as he stuffed his chilled hands in his pockets. He knew his brother. He wouldn’t leave it be unless Sans at least attempted to make it seem normal.

He strolled out of the woods. “Aw, Pap. Are ya worried about me bro?”

“OF COURSE I AM. THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS AN ATTENTIVE LEADER-TO-BE. I MUST LOOK OUT FOR MY OWN BROTHER IF I’M TO MANAGE THE SENTRIES ONE DAY. PERHAPS I’D EVEN IMPRESS UNDYNE SO MUCH SHE’LL MAKE **ME** CO-CAPTAIN!”

“To be honest, you could say you’re already the--heh--backbone of our little unit here.” Sans winked. He took amusement as the metaphorical hearts floating around Papyrus’ head burst, the taller skeleton stomping a boot in the thick snow.

“OH QUIT IT.” Papyrus sputtered, resting his gloves on his hips and drawing himself up straighter, “AHEM. WHILE I ADMIRE YOUR DESIRE TO RETURN TO WORK--EVEN AS IT IS EXTREMELY OUT OF CHARACTER FOR YOU--I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE DOING OKAY. I COULD EASILY HOLD THIS POST UNTIL YOU ARE FULLY HEA--”

Every fiber in his being wanted to scream denial. Papyrus needed to be kept as _far_ from the coming doom as utterly possible. Telling him that was impossible though. Papyrus had this thing about heroics.

Sans kept his head and deflected instead.

“Don’t sweat it Pap, trust in your handywork.” Sans closed the offending eye, _lightly_ tapping the healed cracks just for show, “I’m perfectly fine.  Fit as a fiddle and ready to slack off to the max.”

Papyrus was silent, studying him.

It wasn’t often, but sometimes Sans was afraid of his brother.

Not in a physical sense, but Papyrus was more observant than more people gave him credit for. _Especially_ when he allowed himself a moment to think instead of charging ahead.

“IT WASN’T JUST THE FALL, WAS IT? YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT SOMETHING.”

“I COULD HELP.”

That was exactly what he didn’t want.

Helping would get Papyrus killed.

“I’m good bro. Honest. Just a little rattled. S’nothing a good few hours of staring at snow won’t fix.”

Eventually, Papyrus left. Sans sat at his station for a time, fuzzy slippers resting on the dash. His eyes just kept traveling down the path, and to the door hidden on the other side of the bridge.

Guilt warred with Determination.

Determination won. For now.

“Knock, knock.”

But nobody came.

**x-x-x**

Papyrus returned the next day.

Sans wasn’t surprised.

He didn’t mention the fact that Sans hadn’t come home. Sans was glad he didn’t. He watched Pap approach from the tree-line. He was lugging a rather large bundle over his shoulder.

He dropped it in the snow at the edge of the bridge with a large thunk. He must have noticed the snow Sans hadn’t bothered to clear off the sentry station last night.

Sans had to watch the door. He couldn’t do that from the station.

 He didn’t take a step further, just looked at the partially filled in footprints Sans had left around the door. Then he cleared his throat, addressing nowhere in particular.

“MISS BUNNY SAID YOU’VE BEEN STOPPING IN FOR CINNAMON BUNNIES. WHILE I AM GLAD YOU ARE EATING, I’M SURE NOTHING CAN COMPARE TO THE GREAT PAPYRUS’ NUTRITIONAL, AND WELL BALANCED FREEZE-RESISTANT SPAGHETTI. SO I MADE YOU SOME.”

The gently blowing snow was melting against his skull. That had to be it. The forest was silent as Papyrus waited for an answer.

...but nobody came.

“I’M...NOT SURE WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS, SANS. BUT I’M HERE TO HELP IN ANY WAY I CAN. THERE’LL ALWAYS BE SOMETHING AT HOME FOR YOU IF YOU GET HUNGRY. OR COLD.”

Sans went to open the bundle after Papyrus was gone.

Three containers of still lukewarm spaghetti. But they were wrapped in several articles of clothing. A fuzzy white and grey sweater. Matching socks from his sock collection. All wrapped up in a thick _warm_ blanket.

Sans clenched the sweater to his chest. And then stepped. The world shifted, replacing the lonely bridge and it’s too large gate with Papyrus’ homemade sentry station.

Empty. Pap was gone already.

Instead Sans reached inside the station and grabbed a pen, scrawling a small note on the supporting beam.

_Thank you._

His brother was worth the world.

That was why Sans needed to end this before it took him away.

**x-x-x**

At some point, Sans fell asleep, his new blanket and extra layers helping to insulate him from the biting cold that had been keeping him awake for two days straight now.

It wasn’t a nightmare. At least not yet.

Sans wandered through darkness. It was an odd feeling. There was a floor below him, leaves crinkling with each step, but he couldn’t see it. Walls, but he could barely feel them if he reached out his hand. Rough and weathered stone brick, with trails of ivy crawling across them.

The path was winding, but his feet somehow knew where to go, faint openings in the dark blobs leading away into the unknown.

And then...it opened. A small room, the leaves shifting to something else. Something warm spilled onto his face. A distant sniffle broke the silence.

He opened his eyes.

A field of golden flowers. A small, shape stood out in the center, although no matter how close Sans drew it wouldn’t come into focus. That was okay though. It was a dream. The sniffles quieted as he approached, muffled as the fuzzy figure hunched in on themselves. Defensively.

“You ok, kid?”

They shook their head, clutching something tighter to their chest. Something cupped protectively in the shell of their hands.

Sans hated it when children cried, even dream children. He leaned over, ruffling the kid’s hair, “Wha’dya have there?”

They shifted under the weight of his hand, but didn’t pull away. Sans was surprised when they actually spoke.

“...broken…”

“Maybe I can fix it?”

Another head shake.

“Aw, c’mon. I can be pretty handy.”

The child hesitantly cracked opened their closed fists.

Red and white shards, half of which was already slowly crumbling away into dust, red and white leaking together and mixing to make a dull pink that was neither. The dust spilled out between their fingers, and Sans began to notice the nearest flowers were sprinkled with it.

“...gotta hold it.” The child whispered, closing their hands again, drawing the previous cargo close to their chest again.

_Crack._

An ache in his chest. Sans reached over to pull the kid close into a half hug.

They let him. Buried thier face in his blue jacket, and shook in the crook of his arm.

_MAYBE THEY JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO ALONE._

Sans held them until they cried themselves to sleep.

x-x-x

_Knock, knock._

He jerked awake, the vibrations traveling through the stone. The blanket slid off his shoulder, and he instinctively found himself a good few meters down the path.

It came again. Louder. Muffled by thick stone. “Knock, knock!”

“Who’s there?” Sans asked warily, although he could already tell it wasn’t the door-lady. The world slowed. The dimness of his bad eye sharpened as he channeled the magic into his good one.

“Knife.”

The door rumbled open. Sans didn’t answer.

“Aaw, isn’t this where you’re supposed to ask knife who? I thought you _liked_ joking around.”

The child on the other side was covered in dust. Grey splotches painting their cheeks like cheap warpaint. The wide grin immediately set Sans on edge but it was the knife in their hands that caught his attention immediately.

“Sorry, kid.” Sans shrugged, “Not really feelin’ it right now.”

_Ping._

Sans initiated the fight, dragging the soul out.

The glowing blue heart appeared before the human’s chest. They just laughed.

With another sweep of his arm a half dozen blasters appeared, the animalistic dragon skulls roaring as each charged with energy.

The lasers shot at once.

The blue magic shuddered, shattered and slipped away like water poured on oil, an ugly black and white patchwork pulsed before him. The human jumped, kicked and dodged them all. Sans caught them in midair, tagging them with blue again. He felt his magic slipping, repelled.

But he only needed a moment to jerk them toward the ground. _Hard._

“So you _do_ remember.” They sounded delighted, picking themselves off the ground easily. Giggling. “Oh tell me, how much?”

“Enough to know I don’t like _you.”_ Sans shrugged, “Gonna be honest with you--I generally like kids. But you…”

... _stop me…_

A dust covered human that smelled of death, that soul caked in LV, and the nightmares…

It all added up.

“...you just kinda rub me the wrong way, you know?”

The crying child, desperately trying to hold onto a crumbling soul.

“Do you remember killing us? Over and over?” The human sing-songed, brandishing the knife. It shone plastic in the light from the dayglow crystals that filtered down through the bare canopy above them, but when you had 1 hp any weapon was a weapon. “Do you remember failing again and again and watching as our soul was torn apart?”

They charged, swiping the knife at his chest. He dodged, side-stepping and pinging their soul just long enough for him to shove it aside, sending them skidding through the snow.

“Heh. did you think I was going to stand there and take it?”

The deja vu made his head swim, but he was used to that by now. Blue magic gathered in his right, and he  summoned a wave of constructs, shooting them at the child. Blue. White. Both impaled the ground at different heights, hitting nothing as his target easily darted around.

“Hmm. Different patterns, but even you fall back onto the script sometimes, don’t ya?” The demon-child grinned, the smile stretching like a bleeding wound,. “Will you try to mercy me again if I get far enough?”

Another slash.

Sans dodged.

Ping.

Throw them into a tree.

The bark splintered and cracked, but the human always got up again.

The edge of the knife nicked his jacket. Sans responded with a blaster in the kid’s face. They slid under it, the beam spinning around and slicing through trees as it tried to re-aim. Sans dismissed it with a snap of his fingers, but he lost sight of the kid in the process. Sharp pain shot through the left side of his skull. Sans staggered. He hadn’t seen--a pebble landed in the snow with a sharp plop.

“Interesting.” The demon-child tossed another rock casually up in the air, catching it again, “You seem to have developed a bit of a blind-spot. That should have killed you though.”

Sans sent another wave of bones at them, pushing them back and sending them dancing and jumping again. Giggling. He gingerly touched the side of his skull.

The healed cracks were still there. Still intact, although knowledge told him that if it were to break, they were the weakest link. The pressure behind his eye was pounding.

No dust. Not yet.

If he fell here, Pap would be next.

Intent mattered just as much as the weapon itself when it came to monster souls. A rock or a stick. Toy or a knife.

_!_

Movement to left side. Trying again, were they? It was just a flicker in his peripheral vision, but Sans didn’t have time to think about it. He summoned an incomplete blaster as a shield, the toy knife sinking deep into the lifeless bone. The human tried to pull the weapon out, but Sans sent the dragon’s skull crashing into the trees, forcing the child to let go and land in an undignified roll in the snow.

“Teehee. Never seen _that_ before.”

The giggles echoed through the trees.

“You’ve been holding out on me, partner. I feel cheated.”

Ping.

He tossed the human into the air, summoning a blaster beneath them, energy whined as it charged. If they dodged, they’d just end of flat on the forest floor. Broken and bloody.

_Blood creeping through the grooves. Cheater, Cheater. You **got** me partner._

Green vines erupted from the frozen ground, shredding the blaster to pieces.

The human landed with a broken splatter.

Sans let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

The snow gradually turned red.

“H-hah.” The child laughed. Coughed. Laughed again. “I-it’s G-game o-ver p-partner.”

Sans stepped forward, the magic fading from his eye. Both eyelights winking out.

“Is that all this is to you?” He felt an echo of another conversation, “A game?”

“O-of course.” Even dying the child looked delighted, “L-like it or n-not. Y-you a-are a p-player now. Things have _changed._ ”

“Where’s the other kid?” Sans ignored it. His heart was racing.

“H-heh.” _Cough._ “H-heh.”

...his heart? Skeletons didn’t have hearts.

“Let ‘em out. That’s the deal wasn’t it?” _Game over. My choice._

Giggles.

“T-there must a-always b-be a fallen h-human.”

They reached into their pocket, pulling out a small scrap of fabric.

And threw it into the snow.

“I-I’ll t-tell m-mom you s-said hi, _partner._ ”

_Crack._

_“_ S-see y-you s-soon.”

The black heart splintered.

A scrap of purple, covered in grey monster dust.

_Crack._

A keen of despair echoed in Sans’s mind. Knifing through his skull. He fell to his knees, his head pounding as he sought to pull it back. Something burned in his left eye. Magic. Hot and burning and _red._ It dripped through his fingers, threatening to tear him apart.

_Crack._

A sharp pain pierced his chest. A green spear-like vine protruded from his chest, red magic seeping from the wound and staining the sweater red.

“That’s for hurting Chara, you smiley trashbag.”

Alone in the blackness, shards shattered to dust.

X-x-x

Continue?

Or Reset?

Sans jerked awake in the darkness of his workshop, sprawled unceremoniously on the floor with a pounding headache, and the bone deep knowledge that it had happened again.

The counter ticked up.

One.

He groaned. _Damn_ this sucked. He put a hand to his head, hoping the pressure would ease the pain enough for him to safely make a shortcut to his room. At least he knew about the injury now. If he went to Pap or the healer first thing maybe they could take care of it before he had to collapse again.

...something hot and sticky met his fingers. They came away glowing red.


	4. Chapter 4

“Papyrus...”

Ngh. Papyrus rolled over, snuggling deeper into his blankets.

“Bro. C’mon.”

Nyeeeeeeh… _go away._

“Pap...I need your help.”

Ngh?

“Geez, don’t make me beg for it. Please.”

Sans...needed _his_ help?

Papyrus fought the siren’s call of sleep. With every ounce of sleepy willpower he could muster. He was the GREAT Papyrus. He would never turn down a plea. Especially not from his brother.

Sans _never_ asked for help.

“S--” Papyrus rolled over, a yawn interrupting him, “--ANS?”

“Yea bro. It’s me.” Papyrus struggled to open his eyes. Sans was a short dark lump on the edge of his bed. Except...

“S-SANS.”Papyrus suddenly shot up, staring at the glowing red...something clinging to the side of his brother’s skull, sending the curves of his skull into eerie shadow. “YOU’RE **LEAKING.** ”

“H-heh. Y-yeah.” His brother’s laugh was strangled, “Weird isn’t it?”

Papyrus sprung to his feet, throwing the heavy covers to the side and firmly pushing Sans to sit down on onto the bed. The smaller skeleton didn’t protest. It was dark in here--why hadn’t Sans flipped the light? He created a small bone attack and tossed it at the switch, the brief impact before it fizzled was enough to trigger.

What he saw in the light was even worse.

“How bad is it, bro?”

It...the red stuff was _seeping_ out of a series of shallow cracks in his brother’s skull, another source pooling at the corner of his dark eye-socket. His brother’s left eye was sparking cyan, one of the few signs that he was near panic.

“IT’S...NOTHING THE GREAT PAPYRUS CAN’T FIX. DO NOT WORRY BROTHER!” The false bravado felt...wrong. Papyrus hated lying. But he hated seeing his brother like this even more. He was supposed to be great and strong so he could _protect._ Sure popularity was awesome, but Papyrus wanted people to feel _safe_ around him. That he _could_ protect them from anything. He wanted people to speak of him the way his brother always had. The way they talked about Undyne.

Nyeh. It wouldn’t be a lie if it were true. Papyrus drew himself up. He could do this. He WOULD do this. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

It sparked around his bare hands, a cool, pleasant feeling. He had to _concentrate_ for this. He willed the healing magic he could muster into the broken bone. _This here was wrong._ Miss Bunny’s words came back to him, _You need to convince it to be whole again. But...gently._

So you just ask nicely. Papyrus was good with that. Papyrus would be _so_ nice that it couldn’t help but heal! Nyeh heh!

There was...one problem with his plan. Keeping the panic away was _very_ different when it was his brother’s skull between his hands and not one of the children’s scraped knees.

The red stuff was on his hands now. Not...liquid like he’d thought. It _looked_ thick, but it felt...lighter. Hot, only the cool of the green keeping it from burning his fingerbones. It sparked to the touch, setting his bones tingling if it lingered too long.

Slowly--too slowly--the weeping red slowed. The cracks growing smaller as the green magic and Papyrus’ will worked to remind the bone of what it should be.

Smaller...but not perfect. It had scarred where Papyrus hadn’t quite been able to coax the edges back together. Which was unacceptable for the great papyrus, even as he had to admit the small web of ridges would make a cool battle scar. Sans was too lazy to need a battle scar. He resolved to spend twice as much time learning from Miss Bunny this week. It wasn’t good enough.

Papyrus lowered his hands. He looked down at the fading magic, green and red dissolving and drifting away. “WHAT...HAPPENED SANS?”

His brother stiffened, turning to look at him. The blue was fading from his left eye, but the right remained dark. His entire skull on the right side was stained slightly red, with a small amount still pooling in the corner of that darkened socket. He hadn’t been able to do anything for that. The bone had been broken. Papyrus had asked it to be fixed. But there was...nothing to fix in the eye.

It was...normal.

Even the Great Papyrus knew when to admit there were things he didn’t understand, and magic was one of them. It just was. And it just worked. Papyrus hesitated, and then sat down next to Sans on the bed.

“I CAN’T HELP IF YOU DON’T TELL ME, SANS.”

“I’m not a babybones, pap.” Sans shifted, pulling away. Papyrus grabbed him by the sleeve, stopping him from standing. “It was...just a fall. That’s all. I just...freaked.”

“THAT’S OKAY. EVEN **I** WOULD BE ‘FREAKED’ IF MY HEAD WAS LEAKING. HM. MAYBE WE SHOULD ASK MISS BUNNY. SHE MIGHT KNOW. SHE TOLD ME SOME MONSTERS LEAK WHEN THEY ARE INJURED, BUT I DIDN’T KNOW IT HAPPENED TO SKELETONS.”

“H-heh. It’s called bleeding, Pap. Not leaking. It’s a bit different.” Sans chuckled at something Papyrus didn’t understand, but he was okay with that. It was always better for his brother to be laughing. His smile hardly changed, so laughter was a much better indicator of his overall mood.

“BLEEDING THEN. IT SEEMS SUCH AN INCONVENIENT AND MESSY THING.” Papyrus dismissed it in disgust, “IF I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER I’D ACCUSE YOU OF SNEAKING OUT AND EATING SO MUCH OF THAT INFERNAL KETCHUP THAT YOUR BRAIN HAS TURNED INTO IT. WHAT’S THE SAYING? YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT?”

“What would you be then, Pap?” Sans’ grin seemed a little more relaxed, “Im-pasta-ble?”

“NYEH HEH HEH. YOU JEST, BUT PASTA IS THE MEAL OF HEROES! SURELY A GOOD HEARTY MEAL WILL SPEED YOU WELL ON YOUR WAY TO RECOVERY!“ Papyrus grinned  and clapped his hand on Sans’ shoulder, “YOU SHOULD TAKE THE DAY OFF. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL COVER BOTH OF OUR STATIONS AS LONG AS YOU PROMISE ME YOU’LL GET YOUR HEAD LOOKED AT BY MISS BUNNY.”

“Aw...but it’s fine now, isn’t it? _Eye_ thought scars added character.”

Papyrus huffed. “I WILL ADMIT, BATTLE SCARS ARE AN ACCESSORY WHEN CALCULATING YOUR COOLNESS FACTOR, BUT THE SCAR ISN’T THE PROBLEM.”

“THE PROBLEM IS YOU HAD _RED_ MAGIC SEEPING FROM YOUR **SKULL** _._ ”

“YOU DON’T **HAVE** RED MAGIC.”

Silence. Sans’ good eyelight flickered and went dark, his hands folded on his lap. Papyrus deliberately ignored the chill that ran down his spine. He didn’t like seeing Sans this way.

“I WILL ALWAYS BE HERE IF YOU WISH TO TALK, BROTHER.” Papyrus offered after the longest moment he could stand. He wasn’t very good with poignant silences. One of his _very_ few flaws. “BUT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO COME TO ME--AND I DON’T BLAME YOU FOR THIS, I MAY BE VERY GREAT, BUT MAGIC IS NOT MY UH STRONGEST SKILL YET--AT LEAST TALK TO SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP. DON’T SHOULDER EVERYTHING ALONE.”

“Pap…”

The taller skeleton paused in the doorway, “YES BROTHER?”

“...don’t say things like that ok? You’re helping just by _being_ here.”

The great Papyrus was _Cool._ And Manly. And Tough. He did not have tears gathering in his eyes sockets. Nope. Not at all. Especially because a lazy good-for-nothing like his brother complimented him.

“THAT’S...JUST WHAT A GOOD BROTHER SHOULD DO! NYEH HEH HEH.” Papyrus managed without squeaking, thank you very much, “THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NATURALLY THE BEST OF ALL SIBLINGS.”

Papyrus puffed out his chest, buffing his imaginary fingernails against the shell of his battle body, “JUST AS I WILL CREATE THE BEST, MOST DELICIOUS MEAL JUST FOR YOU, BROTHER! NYEH HEH HEH! JUST TRY BEING SAD AFTER **THAT!** ”

Papyrus dashed out of his room, brimming with energy. He was _helping._ He needed to help **more**. Maybe he needed to make something _special_ this time. Perhaps even a specialty sauce made with his brother’s favorite food!

He could even make an exception, this time.

He was so focused on imagining his brother’s appropriately delighted partaking of his culinary masterpiece, that he didn’t notice Sans’ eyelight slowly flicker on, and his ever frozen smile shift, becoming just a little more sad.

But at the same time, a little more real.

X-x-x

Sans regarded the off-white bone in the mirror, tilting his head to get a better look at the web of sealed cracks. Papyrus hadn’t been kidding. It must have been a nasty fall. He still couldn’t remember at all.

Not as if he could ever forget the result. The pulsing throb in his head wouldn’t let him.

At least the residue washed off. Sans was willing to be grateful for small miracles.

_“YOU DON’T **HAVE** RED MAGIC.”_

**_..._** _trust me Pap. I know._ Sans closed his eyes to the image in the mirror, splashing the running water against his face. The water felt like a cool balm against his skull, which still felt oddly numb where the magic had covered it.

_A scrap of purple, covered in grey monster dust. A spear of green bursting from his chest, weeping red magic, hot and burning._

Sans hung his head over the sink, the pressure behind his eye building into a dull roar.

_Why even try._

A smile slowly faded out of the darkness, knife cut and bleeding.

Glass shattered.

“SANS!” Papyrus called from downstairs, the din of him cooking up a storm in the kitchen pausing as his voice echoed through the house.

“I’m ok Pap.” He called back, opening his eyes. He wasn’t surprised to see the utterly destroyed mirror, the bones used to shatter it just now fading away. Sans took a deep, calming breath, reaching out to turn off the faucet. Not necessary, but it helped. A little.

A little.

Cyan flared, ringing each of the shards of glass that now lay scattered across the bathroom floor. He directed them together, sweeping them into a pile in the corner. He’d...deal with it later.

Or it would reset, in which case he’d just need to hope he didn’t break it again. Either way, not his problem.

The headache pulsed, the world dimming as the magic drained. His right eyelight flickered, before fading and staying dead.

Goddamn it. At least last time it had _sometimes_ worked.

Last time...

_You died_

Again.

So much for trying to get a jump on the punk.

_Sorry kid. I tried._

What now? Do it again?

And again?

And again?

Sans slouched, going to put his hands in his pockets before he remembered he didn’t have them. Papyrus had swiftly devested him of his jacket, leaving him to deal with a thin undershirt, declaring there was no way he was letting Sans wear it until all the magical residue had been laundered away. They _had_ to have some anti-magic detergent _somewhere_ , his brother had insisted.

Sans hadn’t cared enough to object.

_Hot and burning and red. It dripped through his fingers, threatening to tear him apart._

Sans pushed open the bathroom door instead, walking out into the chill air of the house. As skeletons they were fairly resistant to the temperature extremes. That didn’t mean Sans _liked_ being cold.

At least once he got it back it’d be warm and fluffy from the dryer. Eventually.

He stopped in the doorway to his room, finding it unlocked. Had he...left it that way?

Whatever. He just wanted to bury his head in his ratty pillow and not think before Papyrus came back pounding on the door. He paused.

_“I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE BROTHER!”_

He didn’t think Pap would _really_ break down the door...but it wouldn’t hurt to leave it alone. Papyrus could be a mother hen. Easier to just let him. Sans didn’t bother to lock it as he pulled it shut behind him, cutting off the faint light from the hallway. At least in the dark he didn’t noticed the impaired vision quite as much.

He flopped onto the laundry covered mattress, curling up against the pain of the headache. Only there was an extra lump on his pillow. Paper crinkled under his searching fingers, slightly sticky on the underside that barely clung to the fuzzy material. A post it note. A note Sans could barely read even if he had enough light.

At least he didn’t really need to. He could nearly imagine his brother saying the words.

SANS.

STOP SULKING AND WEAR THIS. THE LAUNDRY MACHINE WON’T EAT YOUR JACKET.

YOUR COOL BROTHER,

PAPYRUS

The resulting chuckle sent his head pounding again. Sans buried it under the pillow and fell into an exhausted sleep.

X-x-x

Flowers again. At least the dream was peaceful. He’d take it over a nightmare any day.

Sans knew they should be golden, but this time everything was tinted red.

His right eye burned, and Sans didn’t have to touch it to find the stream of red liquid trailing from empty socket to cheek.

The quiet hiccups echoed in his skull, although there was no sign of the fuzzy figure from before.

... _I’m so sorry…_

“...yeah…” Sans sat down on the edge of the field, tilting his face up toward the distant light. It looked faintly orange, despite the red tinge. He wondered if that was what a sunset would look like. “So am I, kiddo.”

_Crack._

The wound in his soul widened.

A weight around his neck. Arms squeezing in a desperate hug. Sans closed his eyes.

_...don’t leave…_

“...don’t worry. I’m too lazy to go anywhere.”

Red seeped between crumbling white shards, trying to hold them together.


	5. Chapter 5

Sans heard his brother coming before he even reached the door. He stifled a groan into his pillow, wanting nothing more to burrow into the mattress, rolling the blanket around him as a protective barrier from the world.

Just let him sleep and pretend for a bit. That was all he asked.

It was too late though. Papyrus’ heavy bootfalls reverberated up the stairs, shaking off the veil of numbness sleep had awarded him. His head slowly began to pound in time with each nearing thump. They stopped in front of his closed door, but Papyrus didn’t open it. Not yet. There was a muffled sound, and then his brother’s voice. Sans was both thankful, and slightly grouchy that his brother’s voice carried so well.

“REALLY UNDYNE YOU ARE BEING DOWN RIGHT SILLY. SANS HAS BEEN SLEEPING ALL MORNING. THERE’S NO WAY HE COULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO YOUR FRIEND. NO—NO I ASSURE YOU HE DIDN’T PULL ONE OF HIS WEIRD SHENANIGANS, I’VE BEEN CHECKING IN ON HIM LIKE THE RESPONSIBLE CARETAKER I AM. MY BROTHER HAS DONE NOTHING BUT SLEEP OFF THE EFFECTS OF A PARTICULARLY NASTY FALL, SO I’D APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DIDN’T YELL AT HIM.”

...the muffled sound again. Sans couldn’t bite back the yawn in time. _Phone._ He melted back into the blankets. If the fish-lady was here, she’d be even louder than Pap. And then he’d feed on her, and she wouldn’t let him beat her and it would be a cacophony of laughing and yelling and the mere thought of it sent what was left of his courage scurrying off into the corner to whimper in pain. The headache was less...present now, but he could still feel it pulsing.

Idly he wondered if it would ever go away, or if he would just learn to live with it.

He was starting to think the latter.

Feeling like garbage, he rolled himself off the lumpy mattress and onto the cold floor. He lay there a moment, shivering in his thin shirt and shorts, before forcing himself to his knees. Then his feet. One step at a time. It was shaky, but he could do this.

He made his way to the door, the pressure behind his eye pulsing in protest to the movement.

“N-NO OF COURSE I’M NOT REFUSING AN ORDER! I JUST RESPECTFULLY ASK YOU CALL BACK—”

“Pap. It’s fine. I’m up.”

His brother nearly jumped when Sans opened the door, fumbling with the phone in his surprise. The little device bounced in his gloved hands, before clattering to the floor and spawning faintly yelled demands from the other end.

“SANS! I’M SORRY! DID I WAKE YOU?”

“don’t sweat it bro. You can wake the dead without trying.” Sans winked to hide a wince, leaning against the doorframe, gesturing at the fallen phone, “shouldn’t you get that?”

“A-AH!” Sans couldn’t help the faint chuckle to see his tall, long limbed brother awkwardly scrambling for it, “H-HELLO? SORRY I DROPPED—WHAT? YES HE’S HERE—”

_“WELL THEN PUT HIM ON THE DAMN PHONE!”_

Even Papyrus flinched back from that, holding the cellphone at arm’s length.

“ONLY IF YOU PROMISE ME YOU WON’T YELL!” Sans flinched as Papyrus’s already loud voice raised in volume to match. He put a hand to his skull. The pulse behind his eye was growing stronger, radiating a strange heat. Something sticky and warm pooling against his palm. He quickly wiped it away before Papyrus finally turned back to him, hiding the red stained hand behind his back.

Papyrus held out the phone gingerly, grimacing, “SHE INSISTS.”

“No problem.” Sans reached for the phone with his clean hand. Promise or not, he held it away from his skull, “I hear you have a bone to pick with me?”

“ _FINALLY YOU LAZY PILE OF—_ ” She coughed as Papyrus loudly cleared his throat, dialing down the volume enough to let him justify bringing it closer. But not too close. _“Uh—I mean. SANS. What the hell did you do this morning? I spent half an **hour**_ _trying to convince my friend you hadn’t gotten your lazy ass killed. I mean seriously. Did that dumb bridge you guys insist on keeping around finally crack?”_

“Honestly, cap’n? It’s mighty foggy for me. Couldn’t tell ya.” He ignored his brother’s scandalized expression. Heh. He loved riling his brother up. It was one of his few pleasures in life. “My memory _span_ doesn’t seem to reach that far.”

“UGH. JOKES AND UNPROFESSIONAL NICKNAMES ASIDE,” Papyrus yelled over his shoulder at the phone, as Papyrus was won’t to do. Sans suppressed another wince. “AS I INFORMED YOU, SANS HAS NOT BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE ALL MORNING. HE—SANS? WHERE DID YOU SAY YOU WOKE UP AGAIN?”

“The workshop.”

“THE WORKSHO—WAIT. WE HAVE A WORKSHOP?”

“The basement Pap.”

“OH. RIGHT. STRANGE. I DON’T THINK I’VE BEEN DOWN THERE FOR AGES. I SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN IT WAS THERE.”

Of course he did.

The workshop had been Sans and— _static._ Pap didn’t have the attachment to that place. He didn’t have the research and magic and connection—

The pressure behind his eye flared. The static crackled, trying to rival the other. Increasing louder and louder in volume. He couldn’t fight it. Sans tried to let it go. Let the memories sink back to whatever mental box he’d tucked them away into, but _something_ didn’t want to give up. It made the static worse. WHich made his head spin. Which fed the pressure and it all came back around.

“ANYWAY.  MAYBE YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR FRIEND? IF IT HAPPENED THIS MORNING, IT WAS PROBABLY NOTHING MORE THAN A NIGHTMARE. NOT THAT I CAN IMAGINE SANS BEING IN A NIGHTMARE. HE’S TOO LAZY AND COMPLETELY UN-SCARY TO STAR IN ONE OF THOSE.”

“ _THAT ISN’T THE POINT PAPYRUS! The point is I ALMOST HAD TO GO TO **HOTLAND** BECAUSE OF IT! I HATE hotland! He needs to get his lazy ass over there and apologize to her or I’m gonna beat it into the ground!”_

_Doc…_

The thought whispered through the ages. Nudged from under lock and key by well-meaning curiosity.

_Da—static—_

The universe fought back with a roar.

Hot. Why was it so hot. Was he running a fever? Skeletons didn’t run fevers—or have hearts, why was his racing. Sticky. Red. Papyrus hovering and worried. The phone squawked away on the floor, dropped by slack fingers.

The buzzing of the static drowned everything out.

X-X-X

The flowers again.

This time Sans wasn’t standing on the edge. He was lying on his back in the center of the field. He left his eyes closed, basking in the numb darkness.

Petals shifted, brushing up against and tickling his skull. Sans thought about checking it out, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Still. He knew what they were there for. He raised a hand and patted the unseen blooms beside him, inviting them to sit.

They did. Petals rustling and shifting. Cold fire burning at his side. He didn’t need to look to know that.

“I’d appreciate it if you don’t...do that again. It isn’t worth fighting. You just gotta give a little.”

_...sorry…_

“Forgeddaboudit.” He waved a hand dismissively, “It’s better that way. Some things aren’t meant to be remembered.”

...it’s better that way.

It’s better that Pap never knew what he was missing.

It’s better that Alphys never remembered the friend she once had.

It’s better...that Sans didn’t dwell on someone he couldn’t save.

They never remembered anyway, even when Sans had bothered to try. He’d learned his lesson fast.

_I always do._

“Yeah, well, the rest of us ain’t so lucky.”

Silence.

“...sorry kiddo. Didn’t mean it like that.” He sighed, “It’s...personal. In the past. Not really worth it right now. We’ll figure something out.”

_...yeah…_

Shards of white, veins of red, desperately trying to hold them together. Sans’ chest ached.

“I’ma…take a nap for a bit, ok? This is the only place I _don’t_ seem to have a headache from hell.”

_...sans…_

“Hm?”

_...sorry. I’ll try to be more careful._

“...don’t worry about it kiddo. I’m just a little more fragile than what you are used to. That’s all.”

He fell asleep to a wordless voice humming an unfamiliar lullaby.

X-x-x

_Funny-Bone59 has started a conversation._

*Heya. I hear you had a bad time this morning. I got an earful from an angry fish-lady about it.

*I don’t know what you saw, and honestly, I don’t want to.

*But if you still remember it, then there’s a chance it’ll stick this time.

*You’ll realize you’ve done this before. That you could recite that conversation before it even happened. You’ll notice you knew the results of that experiment before you finish it.

*Try not to think about it too much. It’s easier. You might want to check your DT levels. Just in case.

*Just, one thing. If you _do_ remember next time, _PLEASE_ don’t sic Undyne on me. I’m not quite up for playing fish in a barrel with that spear.

_Funny-Bone59 has signed off._

Sans leaned back in his chair, staring thoughtfully at the dimly glowing monitor.

He wasn’t sure if it was worth the effort...but two for two. If he didn’t get a call next time then he’d know for sure.

He often forgot Undyne didn’t make empty threats. He’d managed the shortcut just in time for that glowing blue energy spear to splinter the door into tiny pieces.

...maybe he should just stop closing that door period. That was the second time it, heh, bit the dust. At least he was safe down here. Undyne’s unscheduled presence was just enough of a distraction to keep Papyrus from being a helicopter. He hadn’t _meant_ to faint. Honest.

The pressure in his skull was still there, but it was more of a low growl than a roar now. He could hear himself think again.

Was it getting better? Or was he just getting used to it? In the end, he wasn’t sure he cared.

_Two days._

Did he wait?

Did he go?

The anomaly, the— _dust smudged face and wide, knife drawn smile, demon-child_ —wasn’t restrained by the script. Not like everyone else.

_Where’s the other one?_

Unbidden, Sans’ good eye was drawn to the photo album, sitting innocently on the workbench beside the computer.

_Black ink creeping across the smiling faces._

_Where’s the other one?_

He hadn’t broken the pen this time. It was still stowed away in the desk drawer. But the stain remained, marring the one hope he had for a happy ending.

_Where’s the other one?_

The pressure built. Something tickled his cheek, splashing against his hand. Sans reached up to wipe the almost liquid red magic away. Heat lingered on the tips of his index finger, forming a tiny droplet, eerily highlighted in the blue light from the computer screen.

Papyrus had mentioned it looked like tears.

Red magic. Why _red_ magic of all things?

Red magic was will. Red magic was _determination._ It required _hope._

Everything he lacked.

He was patience, first and foremost. Cyan magic, a tinge of yellow, and blue. Passive, until he absolutely needed to be. As _far_ from the red, who _acted,_ as he could be.

He held his head in his hands. Not from pain this time, but from weariness. Not of the body—he’d gotten plenty of sleep all things considered—but of just... _everything._

Once, he’d had a purpose.

Once, he’d worked to make things a better place.

Once, they’d made a terrible mistake.

And then it’d never happened and the world became poorer for it.

Once, he’d made a promise.

Once, he’d made a friend.

Once, Sans had seen the surface.

And now all that was left was a ruined photograph.

Over and over, he’d dared to hope.

Over and over, he’d seen his brother die.

Over and over, he’d killed himself inside.

 _Cracks._ _White shards, slowly crumbling to dust._

Monsters just can’t _stay_ determined forever. Undyne had proven that in a timeline that no longer was.

Only Boss monsters could freely handle red magic. Only their souls were strong enough to take the concentrations of determination.

His...well… honestly he was afraid to check. He didn’t know what he’d see.

_A fine grey dust spilling through fingers, no matter how hard they tried._

Bits and pieces of dreams. Resounding cracks, echoing through the memory fragments, preceding pain and then darkness.

He _hoped_ he was wrong. That the phone call was just a fluke he didn’t remember and nothing changed in the next reset. Alph didn’t deserve this. No one did.

He wondered if she’d seen him die. That’s what it sounded like.

_Orange. Blue._

_***** is sparing you._

He wished he could just lay down that last shred of hope and stop caring. Like the photograph, ruined and bitter and the momento of something lost.

But one thing kept him going.

Even more so than his promises.

_...you know me and promises._

_Protect them._

_Stop me._

Even if he’d died last time.

Pap hadn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

This time they had a ribbon in their hair. A tiny slip of faded red cloth, threaded through brown strands. He supposed it was supposed to be cute. Sans didn’t know why he noticed such a small, inconsequential detail.

_It’s different._

Different was important when stuck in a timeloop, although he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

_Ping._

The ugly black and white heart slammed back against the door, dragging the body with it. They just bounced back, kicking off the stone and running, weaving through wave after wave of bones until the magic slipped away.

The toy knife lunged, but they weren’t fast enough. Sans side-stepped, reaching out and pinging the heart again. It slipped from his grip almost immediately, but it was enough to nudge them to the side, making them lose their balance sending them careening into the snow.

The demon-child giggled and wiped the snow away from their face, smearing dirt and dust across a knife cut grin and matted hair.

“You’re looking a little _dead_ tired, aren’cha?” Sans commented dryly, a sweep of his arm summoning a set of three blasters, each at a different angle. The demon danced with the lasers, twirling and spinning and slashing. They learned from last time and didn’t let the small knife go too deep. Numerous shallow cuts whittled away at one blaster’s hp. They jumped on the snout of another, tricking the third into obliterating it. “You’re here a day early, did you skip your beauty sleep?”

“What? No banter this time?”

That smile, spreading like oil on the water. The human brushed their matted hair out of their face--Or tried to. It seemed even more unkempt than usual even with the ribbon--and then wagged a finger and by proxy the knife at him “It’s called focus, Sansy~ You remembering means I can’t just memorize your attack patterns. You can’t _imagine_ how many times it took to get to your so-called Mercy trap.”

Oh he knew all right.

Twenty-five. Thirty one. And now they were on round two.

Movement. Yellow in his admittedly limited peripheral vision. He didn’t take his eyes off the child, who hadn’t moved from their spot. Heh. Acting and not attacking. Unusual for this song and dance.

“Nice to know I can still shake you up.” the skeleton drawled, taking his turn to pull up a series of shifting bones around them. The demon-child skipped through most, but a series of smaller, sneakier bones skinned their knees and they winced, but it barely left more than a bruise. Of course. They hadn’t racked up nearly enough karma yet.

The oppressive LV deepened, but it wasn’t coming from his opponant. Sans frowned. That was much higher than the kid had coming into the fight.

_That’s for hurting ****, you smiley trashbag._

“Brought a friend, did you? Two on one doesn’t seem very fair.”

The knife cut grin grew wider. The child giggled. Head lolling with the motion. Like a doll. It made him feel sick to watch. “I asked him not to interfere, but I’m afraid he’s not really your biggest fan. He can be a bit... _murdery_ , you see?”

Green vines, tipped with red thorns.

The pressure pulsed. He could feel the red dripping from his eyesocket, a slow trickle of heat sluggishly rolling from socket to cheekbone.

_A nightmareish face, rimmed in yellow petals. “JUST DIE”_

“Oooooh. That’s new.” _Giggle._

_Giggle._

_GIGGLE._

Sans appreciated smiles, but he was beginning to _loathe_ that one. It seemed frozen. Dead. A mockery of the face that was beginning to look less and less like the kid in the photograph and more like something entirely different. A forest of bones erupted from the snow surrounding him. The demon-child bounced, scampering out of range easily, and then swerving back in once the constructs fuzzed and dissolved. Dancing in and out of range. Toying with him.

_Why._

_Why._

_Why weren’t they attacking?_

_Ping_.

Buying time. Must be.

_Ping._

Time for what? Hell if he knew.

They were too close, darting forward and feigning. They were pushing him toward the bridge. Toward the ravine. So he shoved them back in that moment when he could touch that oil-drenched soul. It flashed blue, he jerked them against a tree. Bark snapped. Wood cracked. The fallen child groaned.

He grabbed again and again. The moment the soul slipped free he pinged them again. Tree. Rock. Ground. He kept his focus on the soul, drenched in death and monster dust. Nothing else mattered.

_Behind!_

“SANS!?” A phantom heart stuttered, skipping a beat. It was distant, but Sans couldn’t _not_ hear it. He half turned, seeing his brother’s red and white battle-body approaching from the direction of his sentry station.

_Oh god Pap._

“I HEARD YOU WERE IN TROUBLE SO I CAME TO HELP! IS IT A HUMAN?! YOU KNOW, WE WERE SUPPOSED TO USE OUR PUZZLES AND JAPES TO LOWER THEIR GUARD BEFORE CAPTURING THEM IN GLORIOUS BATTLE!”

The toy came down, slashing across his unprotected back.

_Crack._

“OH WELL. I THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL BE YOUR OPPONENT NOW, HUMAN, IF YOU DON’T MIND. MY BROTHER IS RATHER FRAGILE SO I SHALL TAKE OVER IF YOU INSIST ON FIGHTING.”

Everything began to fuzz. The wound growing hot  as more of the red magic began to leak down his back. Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice. _Hold it together._

He said something, didn’t he? It was just noise.

_Anything is a weapon to 1 hp._

Something. _Anything_ to get his brother away from here.

“OH. I SEE. ARE YOU AND THE HUMAN ARE SUSPENDING YOUR FIGHT?  DOES THAT MEAN YOU AGREE TO PARTAKE IN OUR PROGRAM OF PUZZLES THEN, HUMAN? THAT WOULD BE LOVELY! SANS! LOOK AFTER THEM FOR A MOMENT WHILE I GO CALIBRATE OUR PUZZLES. WOWIE. A REAL. LIVE HUMAN!”

And then Pap was gone in a flash of excitable energy, running off down the path again. _Unharmed._

A tiny little flower leered at him from across the bridge, waving a leaf as Papyrus ran by. It burrowed into the snow, popping up just a few feet in front of him. Cackling.

Sans finally let himself fall to his knees.

“I know what you want.” The whisper threaded through the fuzzing. The small arms wrapped around his neck from behind in a mockery of a hug. They felt cold. Suffocating. “And I always find a way through when something’s in my way.”

“Your moron of a brother didn’t even question lil’ innocent me.” the flower cackled, “He _never_ does. Friends--siblings--there’s no point to them if they are all _weak._ Not like _you_ Chara. I’m so glad you dropped the act. It’s _great_ to have you back.”

**Chara.**

That name was familiar…

Pain. Sharp. Ripping and tearing as something small and cold plunged into his chest, easily smashing through the crumbling ribcage. Dust. Monsters returned to dust.

Why wasn’t he dust yet? His HP was _gone._

A green vine pulled free, dripping with red magic, wrapped around a battered soul. A monster soul. Flipped. White. Fracturing, just as his body was slowly crumbling. Too slowly. He was...there… there was here. The phantom heart raced and pulsed in time with the desperate soul.

White...with a core of red, desperately trying to hold it together.

No wonder they’d never come out.

“Hello partner…” The demon purred, “Did you miss me?”

_NO!_

The pressure exploded. The soul splintered into tiny shards of red and white. The demon laughed. Eyes a sunken black pit in their dead face.

**_You can run, but you can never hide partner._ **

 

X-x-x

Sans found himself on the floor of the darkened workshop. Skull pounding. Red magic leaking from the fractures in bone.

All in all...as expected.

Except…

“...kid…” he was just so tired, his hand buried in the fabric of his jacket, twisting it against the memory he was trying, and failing, to forget. _Green vines. Thorns dripping with red magic. Curled around--_ “we really need to talk. Properly.”

_Where’s the other one?_

The phantom heart beneath his fist fluttered...and it wasn’t so phantom at all. Sans closed his eyes and lost consciousness, the puddle of red slowly spreading through the tiles on the workshop floor. The pressure behind his eye felt...sorry.

_They’d been here all along._

X-x-x

“SANS”

“SANS”

“BROTHER”

“CAN YOU HEAR ME BROTHER?”

_...yea Pap. I hear you._

The ground felt cold. Something was bouying his head, but not by much. His skull was tingling where he knew the scar was. Where the magic should have been. But no. Nothing. No heat. Only the cooling after-effect of Pap’s weak healing he was beginning to grow used to.

The lights in the workshop were near blinding, even with his bad eye. They cast Papyrus’ long face into a stark silhouette. He could barely make out the details of his brother face. He was...in his brother’s lap?

“YOU ARE VERY FORTUNATE SANS.” Papyrus...seemed unusually calm, Sans thought foggily, through the steady pulsing. “IF I HADN’T HAD THE THOUGHT THE BASEMENT PROBABLY NEEDED SOME DUSTING, AND THEN FIGURED OUT WHERE YOU HID THE KEY, I PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE FOUND YOU. I’M GOING TO PUT YOU ON PERMANENT BED REST IF YOU KEEP REOPENING THAT WOUND.”

_Pap...knows about it?_

“OF COURSE I KNOW ABOUT IT, THE GREAT PAPYRUS HEALED IT FOR YOU!” Papyrus seemed particularly irate at that, “TWICE! HOW COULD YOU FORGET SUCH A THING SANS? I TOLD YOU TO GO GET IT LOOKED AT, NOT COME DOWN HERE AND TRY FOR A REPEAT PERFORMANCE!”

What the hell.

“Wasn’t on purpose bro, honest.” What the...had the demon-child saved? How much time did he have? Why was he down _here?_ He could have sworn… “Maybe...I ...uh...it’s the head you know? But uh...how long have I been out?”

“I DON’T KNOW! I HADN’T SEEN YOU SINCE YOU CAME HOME FROM GRILLBY’S LAST NIGHT. THEN I CHECKED YOUR ROOM WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR BREAKFAST--YOU REALLY SHOULD STOP LOCKING THAT DOOR. I’LL NEED TO FIX IT NOW--”

...Grillbys? He hadn’t _gone_ to grillbys. Not last time. He was sure of it. The pressure behind his eyesocket pulsed. The red magic trickled down his cheekbones. Pap wiped it away with his gloved hand and sighed heavily, but completely unalarmed.

This wasn’t right at _all._

“Pap...when did I get this anyway?” He gestured vaguely to the right side of his face. His brother frowned.

“IT WAS--YOU KNOW, I CAN’T SEEM TO RECALL. BUT I’M _SURE_ I HEALED IT FOR YOU ALREADY. SANS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? BE CAREFUL! YOU KNOW YOU USUALLY GET DIZZY AFTER A HEALING SESSION!”

Sans was pulling himself to his feet, pushing through the headache. Papyrus was on standing much quicker, and caught Sans’ elbow as he swayed. Sans tried to wave him off, “I’m fine bro, rea--”

“WHERE DO YOU NEED TO GO?” Papyrus ignored him, reaching around Sans’ middle and bodily picking up the smaller skeleton, throwing him over his shoulder. Sans sighed. Resigned to his fate. He waved vaguely in the direction of the swimming workbench as the world wavered in his double vision.“The computer.”

It wasn’t anything more than a few feet away. Sans could shortcut there if he didn’t think he could walk, but Pap refused to put him down, and really Sans wasn’t one to turn down a free ride even if it was just across the room. “REALLY, I CAN’T THINK OF WHAT YOU WOULD BE DOING DOWN HERE ANYWAY, SANS. IT LOOKS LIKE IT HADN’T BEEN TOUCHED IN **DECADES--** POSITIVELY FILTHY. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT’S BEHIND THAT SHEET ANYMORE?”

_-static-_

The pressure pulsed...and then let it fade. Sans let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.

“Just some sentimental junk, pap. Don’t worry about it. I come down here to think sometimes.”

“BEHIND A LOCKED DOOR? YOU HAVE--HAD YOUR ROOM FOR THAT.”

“Until you destroyed my door.”

“I DID NO SUCH THING! IT--IT--IT REFUSED TO OBEY MY ORDER TO OPEN! _”_

“It’s a door, bro.” Sans chuckled, “It’s kinda supposed to stay closed.”

“YES WELL. IT WAS QUITE RUDE. IT WAS IN MY WAY.”

“Yea sure bro.”

Sans was beginning to think his poor door was cursed.

“HERE YOU ARE BROTHER.” Papyrus _finally_ set Sans down on the chair before the work bench, “WE COULD JUST BRING THE COMPUTER UPSTAIRS YOU KNOW. THEN YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE IN ORDER TO GET INSIDE. THIS WORKSHOP SEEMS QUITE INEFFICIENT ANYWAY. MAYBE WE SHOULD BUILD SOME STAIRS FROM INSIDE, AND OH, MAYBE TURN THE WHOLE THING INTO A MUSEUM TO **ME** OR A SECOND COZY LIVING ROOM FOR WHEN I’M SUPER POPULAR AND OVERFLOWING WITH FRIENDS OR MAYBE A GYM SO I DON’T HAVE TO EXERCISE IN THE COLD--”

“Pap?”

Papyrus paused.  Sans hadn’t looked up from where he was staring at the computer screen as the old, outdated tech awakened from sleep mode. “YES?”

“I kinda like it the way it is.”

This workshop was the only thing he had left of-- _static._

Sans closed his eyes as the wingdings text flicked across the screen. He knew what it read. The letters always blurred anyway.

_Welcome doctor ******_

“O-OH. WELL. IF YOU ARE SURE. AT **LEAST** TRY TO DUST A LITTLE MORE. I’M GOING TO NEED TO SCRUB THE FLOOR TO CLEAN THE RESIDUE AWAY AS IT IS, SO I SUPPOSE I COULD GIVE THE ROOM A ONCE OVER …”

Sans listened with half an ear to Papyrus’ regular babble, the other half waiting for the tell-tale ding of the desktop loading. He opened his good eye, but just a crack. The headache did _not_ agree with the bright blue light from the monitor.

The date was a blurry stamp in the corner, and the time was dim blue numbers on the clock to the left. That looked...right. Still the first day. A little later than he remembered, but he _had_ fainted right off the bat this time. He was only a couple hours off.

So...no save. That was...good.

But...why?

They’d _killed_ him.

That meant nothing would have been standing between them and the King. No one else had managed to stop them before.

Why...reset?

A notification was flashing in the system tray. The pressure--and he was beginning to suspect what _that_ really was--prodding at him, Sans clicked on it.

_Alphys has started a conversation._

*Sans? This is sans right?

*I didn’t tell her.

_Funny-Bone59 is no longer away._

_Alphys is typing…_

*I’m sorry Alph.

Sans closed the window.

First Pap was acting strange, and now _that._

“SANS? ARE YOU OKAY? YOU ARE SHAKING.”

“I’m...I think it’s time to go upstairs Pap.”

“OF COURSE! I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT TOOK SO LONG. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET THAT LOOKED AT?”

Sans didn’t resist as Papyrus picked him up this time.

“...later. I’ll go see the doc later.”

“YOU PROMISE?”

“Yeah. Can’t put it off forever, ya’know?”

“OH GOODIE! MISS BUNNY WILL FIX IT UP IN NO TIME, I KNOW IT!”

Somehow he doubted it, but Pap’s optimism always made him want to smile.

_What did we do kid?_

The pressure eased.  The phantom heart was a faint, but present burn in his chest.

_What do we do now?_

X-x-x

Oh dear.

Oh no.

What did she say?

What _should_ she say?

_*I’m sorry Alph._

She--she hadn’t been sure, after she’d managed to calm down from the initial panic. It had just been a hunch. A strange nightmare that stuck in her mind with a sharp clarity she wasn’t used to outside repeat dreams. Normally she always liked to type up her dreams. The good ones anyway. Some of them--well--it’s not like _Undyne_ would go snooping through her computer to find the fics that would never see the light of day. Mettaton maybe, but that’s why they were on the tablet.

And it’s not like he came around much anymore.

Claws scrambled to type up a reply--

_Funny-Bones59 has logged off._

Well. Whatever there was to say, she just lost it.

_God. I’m useless._

That habit made it very easy to remember the silly and fun dreams where she was running across the rooftops with Mew Mew, swooping down with skill and grace to protect Undyne’s back with unrivaled coolness that would impress even _Undyne_.

Unfortunately...

It also burned the ones she wanted to forget into her mind, even if she didn’t write a word. Mostly it had to do with the Amalgamates. With watching as her experiments failed over and over again and the subjects slowly lost themselves in each other. The never ending wave of unopened mail drowning her.

_S-sans. Not you too!_

_E-everyone. Everyone’s gone._

She screwed her eyes shut.

_Don’t you **ever** steal from me._

Alphys shuddered. Wrapping her arms around herself. Shivering in her chair. Tail curled uncomfortably. She wanted to become a ball. A tiny little ball that could roll and hide and not feel anything.

She--she wanted to call Undyne.

But she couldn’t.

She’d reached for the phone, panicked and half awake and wanting that unshakable confidence. To ground her in the here and now. She knew it wasn’t real. She _knew_ it.

And then stopped.

_*If you remember…_

Don’t call her.

It was silly to call her over a nightmare...right? One she obviously had known wasn’t real. Sans wasn’t fighting anyone. Especially not the king. He was too lazy for that.

_*I’m sorry Alph._

Alph.

No one called her Alph.

Ever.

Except…

_-static-_

She checked her recent contacts again. It was early enough that most everyone was away, not online, but...

_Funny-Bones59 is offline._

_Pull it together Alphys._ She banged her head against the desk. Not too hard, but enough for the shock to jolt herself back to the present. _Sans is **fine.**_ _You didn’t go crying to undyne over a bad dream. And you somehow psychically knew his username despite not having spoken to him for years except in a timeline that never happened._

...yeah. Like that last part was at all reasonable. Who _else_ would be called Funny-Bones59 and be posting bad puns on Papyrus’ wall? Just simple deduction, not some weird time-space shenanigans.

_Sans **did** use cyan magic though. In addition to the space component, time dilation is theoretically possib--oh quit it Alphys. Save it for your fanfiction._

And there she went making up things again. Even IF theoretically cyan magic had applications relating to bending space--Ugh. Alphys let her head fall back to the desk, and grabbed her phone. She barely glanced at the status update as she typed it and tossed the phone back onto the desk.

It buzzed almost immediately.

 _Like, just_ **call** _‘em sister._ Fabulous-Crocodilian had posted a response. If Bratty was online then Catty should be. Her phone buzzed again, the notification from Catty-Kitten this time. _Yeeeaah. Just call ‘em. The phone won’t bite, not like Bratty._

It buzzed again.

_OMG I do noooot Catty._

_Buzz_

_ILU Alphys <3 Stop by sometime._

Alphys couldn’t help a giggle. She--she--

She...hadn’t seen them in a long time, hadn’t she? Not since she became the Royal Scientist and moved out of Waterfall and into the lab. It wasn’t that she’d...meant to. It was just…

With all the experiments.

And the mail.

And people...stopping her…

To ask about…

No.

She couldn’t go outside.

And the advice to just call...wasn’t that simple. She didn’t even know if Sans _had_ a phone.

_Papyrus does._

He was constantly posting mobile updates, wasn’t he? There’d been that picture the other day of a...uhm...well built snowman, obviously taken by a crappy phone camera..

Not that she knew his number or anything. She _coooould_ write a program to try all possible number combinations and then cross-reference them with public or known phone numbers but…

_Or you could, you know, just message him on undernet._

Ugh. But they weren’t even _friends._ What would he think? She could _see_ his wall through their mutual friend in Undyne (who never really clicked with the Undernet, despite many attempts on Alphys’ part) but wouldn’t it be _weird_ to just up and message someone out of the blue?

_You just did it earlier with Sans._

Well...yeah...but Sans was _Sans._

Even if it’d been a year since Papyrus’ sentry promotion party, they had hist- _static-_

Oh whatever. She typed up a quick message and sent it off before she could talk herself out of it. Then buried her head in her arms, and did what she did best. Blasted Mew Mew Kissy Cutie’s opening song through her speakers and ran away from the problem. For a while.

Eventually, with a bony hand on her shoulder, it caught up to her.

“Evenin’, doc.”


	7. Chapter 7

_-_

_Flowers._

_Why didn’t they say anything?_

_Would you even remember if they had?_

_-_

“Oh—hi—Sans—hi—I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were coming and oooh I haven’t cleaned and—tea! Do you want some tea? I think I have tea! I—I’ll g-go—make some! Yes!”

Alphys wanted to dive into the garbage can and not exist until her hide stopped being an unflattering shade of orange. She felt utterly embarrassed. She wasn’t sure why she—she’d essentially given him an open invitation to come visit! Why hadn’t she prepared? When you have a guest that can instantaneously teleport, it’s not like distance is an issue—

_Where did you put that tea? You can’t have a guest without tea. What would Undyne say if she knew?_

It’d been so long since she’d actually _seen_ Sans that the entire thing felt incredibly awkward. She—she didn’t even have a proper table or chairs for guests—Alphys usually just ate at her desk. Or on her bed. She almost unfolded the cube just to give him somewhere to sit, but then reddened at the mere idea of another person sitting on her bed— _geez calm down, he’s already napped on it, remember?_

Not that he seemed bothered in the slightest by her lack of preparation. He seemed content to just lean against the wall with his hands in his pockets and watch her run in confused circles like a madjick with its head on backwards. While normally such attention would make her feel uncomfortable as it was, the dead gaze in his right-socket just repeatedly sent shivers down her spine, leading her to cast glances back at him as she bustled about and banged through the cabinets looking for another container to use as a makeshift mug.

...at least he noticed and made an effort to keep it closed. Although it just made her feel terrible for staring.

...did Sans even drink tea? She suddenly realized she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure why she thought he would. She hoped so. She had some seaweed tea that she _had_ been keeping for whenever Undy—er—special occasions. Yes. Special occasions of _anyone_ visiting. Not just Undyne. Not that Undyne _would_ visit. She hated hotland. Even the walk from the River Person’s dock to the lab was enough to make her irritable and grouchy and Alphys why are you thinking about this _now—_

“Breathe doc.”

She did. Her mind blanking as she took in a deep breath of air. Quieting the constant noise of her thoughts.

That helped. A little. And also was accompanied by a distinct sense of deja vu. One so strong it nearly made her head spin.

“How do you _always **do** _ that?” She grouched, before flushing with embarrassment. No. Bad. No grouching at the guest.

...and then immediately the battered old kettle whistled, and Alphys was sent scrambling again, juggling a proper mug (for sans as the guest, although she _wished_ she had anything else on it besides Mew mew’s adorable face blowing a kiss.) and a beaker (for herself) AND the tin of tea leaves as she rushed to remove the water from the heat.

And...of course she tripped. Tripped over her own too big too clumsy feet and tail and while she managed to keep a hold of the mug (with her claws hooked around the handle), the other two went flying. She scrunched her eyes shut, waiting for the _crash_ of broken glass and the clang of metal rattling against the tile and the disaster of her special tea scattering everywhere and why was she so _horrible_ at this—

And…

And…

...Nothing?

She cracked an eye open.

And then stared.

The beaker and tin were wreathed in a faint, light blue aura, suspended off the floor. A bony hand directed them up, and over, settling them down on the counter she’d been aiming for in the first place. The aura fizzled. A glowing cyan eye flashed and then faded back to a white pinprick.

She _needed_ to convince him to let her scan that. If she could finish a profile for cyan magic, then she’d be one step closer to a full spectrum.

“Ya’know, you don’t need to go outta your way for me, Alph. I was the one to waltz in uninvited.”

“N-no!” She shook her head, quickly scurrying off to grab the battered old kettle off the heat, “I-I was the one to send y-your brother that m-message. I j-just f-figured w-we’d uh t-talk online s-since Snowdin is so far a-away—Well. Maybe n-not f-for you b-but…”

“You know about that huh?” Of _course_ she remembered. It was the first time she’d ever _seen_ pure cyan magic! The free-form telekinesis application was often misattributed to blue magic, which was often one-directional, but she’d _never seen_ anything like the telepor—wait.

 _When_ had that been?

...she hadn’t seen him since Papyrus’ party right? When Undyne dragged her?

_A glowing blue—no cyan eye in the dark. A lazy wave at the camera._

“Seriously Alph. Try not to think about it too hard. It’ll just give you a headache.” His grin looked a little more...resigned somehow, although she could swear it didn’t actually change, “It’s weird but you get used to it.”

Why did it feel more recent than that?

_“Oh god oh god. Was he hit? Asgore! You have healing magic right!?”_

_“I—_ uh—about what?” Strange. Her hands were shaking. She probably shouldn’t be handling boiling hot water if they were shaking. She set the kettle on the counter.

_No dust. Not yet thank god. But he wasn’t moving._

“The reason you sent that message this morning.” That blank eye was...intimidating. At least when he was channeling, the magic was distracting enough. Alphys looked away. Staring intently at the dirty tiles beneath her feet.

She…

She didn’t want to remember.

She didn’t...

_.84/1_

_.83/1_

_.82/1_

_It was draining. Why? None of Asgore’s hits had landed!_

_The King’s hands were on the skeleton’s shoulders._

_Green magic wreathing his large paws._

Just...a nightmare right?

_.81/1_

_.80/1_

_.79/1_

_Had...had he just...fallen down?_

_Unless she was missing something._

Was she missing something?

_Without him—_

_Without him—she’d be the only one left._

_The only one…_

_“S-sans…” Her voice cracked as the full implications dawned on her. If he’d fallen—and his HP just kept **falling,** “P-please. N-not you t-too”_

**Ping**

Alphys jerked back to the present, shivering and shaking her head. There was a pressure about her chest, as if a large, firm hand was holding her soul. A faint blue light shown, shimmering before her chest.

And then it faded, the strength holding her on her feet fading with it. She caught herself on the counter, tea kettle forgotten.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Sans took a step back, the magic fading from his eye and hand. He slid to the floor, folding his legs under him. He wasn’t much taller than she was normally, but sitting on the floor put him slightly below her. It was...odd. She was used to being towered over. Not on nearly equal levels. “You looked like you were about to faint.”

“T-thanks. I—I think…”

She’d…

He’d…

“Y-you’d...after...t-the king...”

Her throat closed.

She was expecting him to burst into laughter.

But he just closed his eyes.

“Yea. That was the first time.” He shrugged, “This is the third time since then.”

“T-third—Sans it’s _CRAZY.”_ The words just tore out of her throat. She flushed, and then curled in on herself, burying her claws in the folds of her stained labcoat, “It was just a strange dream! I—I shouldn’t h-have even sent anything! I don’t k-know w-why I-I did. I-It’s n-not l-like w-we’re—”

“What? Friends?” The skeleton slipped his hands into his pocket, opening his good eye.

She flinched. But said nothing.

Said nothing. _Thought_ nothing.

Static filled her mind.

“Look, Alph, I don’t particularly care if you believe me or not—it ain’t worth the effort. Not tibia downer,” A bone white hand withdrew again, holding it in front of his chest, palm upward, “but there’s a decent chance you won’t remember anyway, next time. ”

“T-then why?” She squeaked. Why her? **SANS** had always been the main assista—

“Because you noticed.” He shrugged, “And I think I need a second opinion.”

 ** _He_** needed help?

Something fluttered over San’s hand. Small. No bigger than his fist. It shone with a soft light. She knew what it was immediately. A monster soul.

Manifestation. No big deal. It normally didn’t happen without a FIGHT, but...not...

...monster souls should be white. Smooth. This was was littered with cracks, running through the entirety of the soul. That would have been unusual, but not impossible. Soul injuries could be visible…

But the **_red._**

Unlike human souls, monster souls didn’t...display their magical affinity.

Or they shouldn’t. The soul Sans carefully cradled was littered with _red._ Red ran like tiny veins through the soul’s scars, branching out from the very center. In the center…

Upright and beating and _glowing_ with magic.

“T-the _red_ s-soul.” She stumbled back, only there was nowhere to stumble to. She had her back up against the cabinets. She _knew_ that soul in a way that struck at her at the core. She’d _studied_ it for _days_ , while she and Sans poured over diagrams written in gibberish that she’d apparently known how to read once because it was so damn familiar.

Only...it had never happened...hadn’t it?

**_Ping._ **

_Glass breaking. The now blue soul flying through the air. Bone closed around it._

_Then they were gone. Metal screeched behind her._

**_Don’t ever steal from me again_ **

“Y-y-you s-stole i-it—” She was hyperventilating now. She knew it. She knew it and she tried to breath and it didn’t work. It didn’t work.

“They would have all stayed dead if I hadn’t.” The soul fluttered. The red pulsing outward, streaming through the cracks in white. And then faded away, the manifestation ended. But that had just been an image. Inside it was still bleeding.

_They would have all stayed dead._

Now they aren’t.

_Don’t cry Alphys darling._

She...she desperately wanted to call Undyne.

“So yeah. No regrets.” He opened his dark eye, revealing red magic pooling in the dark socket, threatening to drip down his skull, “Didn’t expect the consequences though.”

 _Oh god._ She’d never actually seen it red before, but unrefined DT was usually the color of the soul she extracted it from. There was a long and complicated series of processing phases she usually needed in order to make it even remotely safe for her own experiments but that wasn’t important now because  Sans was _leaking_ raw DT from his _skull._

She’d need to dig out her specialty made bio-hazard gloves to go _near_ it.

_She’d tried so hard to save them._

She shuddered.

“I—I just. I just can’t—” How. _Why._ This was _insane._

And yet…

- _static-_

_Breathe._

She took a deep breath.

It isn’t... _that_ again. Not the amalgamates. Not—

_H-had he—fallen down?_

“I—we— _downstairs._ Now. _”_

Sans pushed himself to his feet, slipping a red stained hand into the pockets of his jacket.

“Lead the way, Doc.”

 

x-x-x

“T—this is _impossible._ The r-readings th-they must be wrong. W-we’ll need to scrap this and t-try again. _”_

Okay. This was getting silly.

“You’ve done it three times now Alph.” Sans pointed out, trying to ignore the dread crawling up his spine being down here. They weren’t even _in_ the room they’d repurposed into a containment cell in another timeline. He was sitting on one of the many empty beds in the main hall, absently petting the Endogeny’s head as it drooled all over his lap. Alphys had made displeased noises at its presence, but it refused to heed her attempts to shoo it away.

Honestly, Sans was glad it was here. The simple act of petting it seemed to ease some of the nervous flutter in his chest. Most of the dread probably wasn’t even his.

“Y-you should be _dead_ if it isn’t wrong.” Alphys snapped at him. And then _realized_ she snapped at him. “I—I—oh I’m—sorry. N-not d-dead dead per say. J-just...t-the amalgamates b-began to lose coherence at around—3 DT. A-and none ever p-pushed beyond 4—a-and yours i-isn’t even _denatured._ It’s raw and...and...”

“I got the gist, Alph.” Sans shrugged, scratching the Endogeny behind the—ears? He thought they might have been ears once. “But if you get the same answer _three_ times, sometimes you gotta start considering it’s true, eh?”

“Your soul is currently sitting at a _5,_ Sans!” She waved the tablet frantically, where it was being fed information from the more mobile monitoring equipment on the small cart beside the bed “It’s _overflowing._ I don’t—I can’t—it just doesn’t make sense! Somehow the magical focus in your eye is managing to process the soul’s raw DT into a more physical red-magic based form, but even _that_ isn’t enough to lower your levels back down to even _moderately safe—_ ”

The pressure in his skull was deepening with every word she said, and he could _feel_ the build up behind the closed eye. Well. At least they wouldn’t have to wait too long for the sample.

He nudged the Endogeny’s head off his lap, much to the...dog?’s displeasure. It whined at him, but ended up resting it on the bed anyway. The bed was at about the thing’s shoulder height. Not that size was too much of an obstacle to something so...amorphous.

“Doc? I appreciate the worry, but I’m just happy to be holding together. ” _Dust. Slipping through a child’s fingers._ _Think you can last?_

He hadn’t survived past day three. Who knows, she might still be right.

“H-how are y-you s-so _calm?”_ _Clatter. Crack._ Her shaking claws slipped. The tablet rattled against the tile floor. Green error messages began flashing across the shattered screen. The sudden sound had startled the Endogeny, the large amalgamate making gargled barks and rocketing out to one of the nearby hallways.

Heh. Calm?

How many times had she asked him that question now?

Sans slid off the bed, peeling the tiny censors away from his skull as he did. The magic-conductive gel felt cold when exposed to the air. He knelt down, knees scraping against the tile floor.

“Honestly?” The other monster stared uncomprehending at the tablet he was holding out to her, “I’m just too much of a lazybones to worry about myself.”

There were more important things, after all.

“I—I—B—but…” Alphys tentatively accepted it, running a claw across the large crack in the screen. “It-it’s _so much._ I—already feel like I watched you die. And s-stuff like this...makes me think it’ll happen a-again. _”_

_You want to tell her it’ll be okay._

“It’ll work out, Alph. I—”

He refused to make another promise. Even if it would probably make her feel better.

_SANS! I HEARD YOU WERE IN TROUBLE._

His counter was up to three, and he already felt like he was stuck.

Alphys took a deep breath when he didn’t offer anything more, pinching her nose. He could tell she was counting. Trying to talk the panic down.

What else was there for him to say?

The magic pushing against the back of his skull had been steadily increasing, but now he could feel it beading under his closed eyesocket, beginning to leak through.

Looked like time was about up. At least this would probably distract her.

“Uh. Doc? You wanted a sample right?”

“I—I—ah! Yes!” That startled her out of her funk. It always had. She scrabbled to place the broken tablet on the cart, snatching a pair of heavy reinforced gloves and slipping it over her clawed hands. “H-how long has it been? T-twenty minutes? I—I didn’t expect the build up to be this fast.”

“It comes and goes.” He’d be out of her easy reach if he sat back on the bed, so he just sank back onto the floor. He didn’t want her reaching with the metal implement she was using to carefully scrape the near-liquid magic from bone into a containment jar. “Hey, Alph? Is this stuff dangerous?”

“H—huh?” The metal tool got dangerously close to the socket. While it was technically empty, Sans didn’t _like_ the idea of something poking about in there. It was his head, thank you. “O-oh. The gloves. Uhm. Well. Sort of? A portion could b-be absorbed t-through contact, but n-not enough to c-cause a notable difference in someone’s l-levels. N-not without prolonged exposure, or accidental ingestion.  I—I’m just—being careful.”

So...Pap was likely alright. That was good. His brother had been acting weird this morning. And he’d routinely come in contact with the stuff as he healed, but Sans supposed it was quite _handy_ Papyrus favored gloves.

...Except that second time. When Sans had woken him before he had a chance to get ready for the day. Bone white fingers had come away red.

It felt like forever before Alphys pulled away, screwing the cap tightly onto the container she’d been collecting the nearly-liquid magic into. It started humming as soon as the lid clicked. A soul container. His skull still faintly burned where it had been scraped away. At least the build-up seemed to have eased. Damn this was annoying. It seemed like it got worse each time.

“I—I’ll need to do some m-more tests, b-but s-so far it seems consistent w-with my observations on _determination._ I-it probably wouldn’t hurt to use a pad to absorb the overflow but i-it should destabilize fairly quickly o-once removed f-from the source. I-it’s not bleeding from anywhere else, is it?”

“Nah. Just the eye.” Unless he got hurt, but she didn’t necessarily need to know that part. It would make her ask why.

_You consider being honest._

No one needed to know the entire truth.

The pressure began to build again.

He would stop them before they reached Snowdin.

Over.

And over.

If he needed to.

“S-sans! H-here.” She was offering him a folded piece of white cloth. Probably to wipe away the new flow of red currently rolling down his cheek, “W-why is it— _oh! Oh why did you take off the monitors—_ I-it’s—gotta be the focus—shunting— _”_

He took it from her, pressing the soft gauze against bone to help soak up the near-liquid magic. Hadn’t they just gotten rid of most of it? “Doc?”

Alpyhs had bustled over to the monitoring equipment, and was frantically fiddling with it “Ah—dang—I don’t think I can—not without the tablet—ooooh. _FINE.”_

She spun on her heel and stalked back towards him. If Sans had an eyebrow he would be raising it. Instead he just furrowed his skull and tilted his head, “What s’up doc?”

“You—just—keep doing what you were doing!”

Yellow magic sparked around her claws.

 _What?_ What had he been doing?

The magic around the sparking claws began to solidify into yellow glass.

“The thing! _Something_ caused the increase in volume. Keep doing it!”

_You think about a dust covered scrap of purple cloth._

The pressure behind his eye pulsed sharply. Sans winced, squeezing the gauze between palm and skull.

_Knock, Knock._

_But nobody came._

...why did he suddenly think of the door-lady?

_You think about a sunset you don’t remember._

Pulse. It felt like his skull was about to burst. The gauze was too full. It was leaking between his fingerbones now.

“O-okay! I—I’ve got it! T-that’s enough!”

_An ink stained photograph, bleeding from a scrawled promise._

“S-sans! S-stop!”

- _Blackness. Had he fainted again?-_

_Snap._

The pressure eased.

He deflated, slouching back against the heavy frame behind him. His shaking hand met tile, the same grooved and chipped and probably not the best maintained. He was lucky he was already sitting on the floor.

Everything was black.

“Oh god—oh god—are you _okay!?”_ A faint glimmer of yellow in the black. Felt like Alph’s magic. Nervous.

Sans winced against the headache that returned in a full force, rushing to fill the void.

“Think so. Are my eyelights out?”

“I—yes—both are dark. Y-you’ve done it before on purpose, r-right?”

“Not this time.” He grunted, trying to tease out a spark of yellow magic. Mixing the perception-based magic usually cleared it up enough to make it bearable.

Nothing.

He defaulted to cyan.

Still nothing.

Even with his main affinity, his magic wouldn’t respond.

Well. _That_ was a problem.

“W—what _was that?_ Y-you—that completely overloaded _both_ of your magical foci! I-I had considered your body was overloading your right-focus, which would explain the bleed-over but— _how_ did the levels surge so much to knock out _both?”_

“You asked them to keep doing it.”

He heard her gasp as a sharp intake of breath. Sans sighed and closed his eyes. They were useless right now anyway. At least until he stopped feeling like a fire had just swept through his soul and charred everything black. Overload. Sounded about right.

He hadn’t felt this bad since he’d first managed one of the blasters. Raw. Aching. And just overall burned out. Like the stove after Pap’s first few cooking attempts, when the entire room was perpetually covered in a thin layer of soot. From boiling water. Sans never had understood it. His brother was talented.

“ _Them?!”_ She squeaked.

“What? You think _I_ can be that determined alone?” He wanted to laugh. It was so obvious now.

That focus. The constant push forward. The _pressure_ to continue. A pressure so heavy it overwhelmed him at times.

“ _T-they—_ it’s _listening!?”_

“It’s a living soul, doc. It ain’t gonna stop existing just because it’s hitching a ride.”

_Ain’t that right kiddo?_

_-_

_Flowers._

_Why didn’t I say anything?_

_A_ _ll I seem to do is hurt you._

_-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully some of the weirdness makes sense now! Don’t worry, Sans’ magic will be working once the focus recovers a bit. They just…overdid it. It’s actually happened before, Frisk just managed to stop before he fainted this time.
> 
> As for anyone wondering why Frisk stayed with Sans despite the reset. I’m not sure if it’ll get properly explained in story, but think about where Sans teleported to at the end of Continue. And where he keeps waking up. We already know some things stay the same there despite the resets.


	8. Chapter 8

“Y-you sure you’ll be okay going back—like that?”

Alphys was worried. But when _wasn’t_ she? Sans tilted his head toward her voice, “It’ll be fine. It’s been a while, but I used to commute to Hotland all the time.”

He hadn’t always known how to teleport. Granted, he hadn’t actually used the river-person’s boat _since_ …- _static-_ It was hard to justify walking when you learn you can just _step_ and be there no problem.

...of course, the shortcuts wouldn’t _work_ if he couldn’t muster the energy to use them. Like right now. Which was why Alphys was shuffling after him as he carefully picked his way down the stairs toward the landing. Her awkward mother-henning was both irritating and touching, so he ended up settling for a nice middle-ground of bemused gratitude. He wasn’t physically harmed. His soul still felt charred, but it was beginning to numb. Whether that was a good or bad thing he wasn’t sure. That familiar pressure was missing, but he could still feel the faint beat of a heart within his chest if he looked hard enough for it. He needed to figure out how to actually talk to the kid. He hated having to guess.

“O—oh. Did you work h-here? W-when? H-how? I—I’ve always been alone at the lab.”

“It was a long time ago.” Sans waved vaguely, skirting the edge of yawning pit in his memories.  Long time. Lost time. Not really something he really wanted to talk about. “We were in and out of the core mostly. Maintenance. Ya’know how it is.”

“Y-you always w-were g-good with the e-equipment…” The mumble nearly made him miss a step.

She _shouldn’t_ remember anything about that.

Bringing notice to it would be worse, so Sans let it slide.

“I—I don’t know about this, Sans.” She shuffled uncomfortably. Sans could barely make out her hunched shape against a dark background. She hadn’t let him leave until he could prove that he wasn’t entirely blind, that yes his vision was slowly clearing, even then had insisted on hovering to make sure he didn’t trip or something. “W-what if the river is r-rough today? S-should I call Papyrus? H-he could come pick you up—o-or I can g-go all the way—”

“It’ll be fine Alph, don’t _sweat_ it, I’m no baby bones.” And god was Hotland _warm_. “It’s a straight shot from the landing, and it’s not like I plan on dancing the salsa during the ride. I’d rather not worry Pap about this.”

“D-does he know? A-about...y-you know…”

“Nah, and I don’t plan to tell him.” If everything went well, Papyrus would _never_ meet the human. There was no point in wandering down that path.

...it was quiet, but an echo of regret hovered after that thought. A painful prick.

 _You can’t blame me for it, kid._ Sans very pointedly directed it to where that faint flutter was. Papyrus wouldn’t see the demon. He’d just see a _human._ He wasn’t willing to risk his brother on the whim of the kid’s own personal Mr. Hyde. Complete with murderous tendencies. Given how the last time ended…

He’d really rather not go there right now. His chest—their soul ached just thinking about it. That was the clearest death so far. It was burned into his memory, lurking on the edges while he’d tried to distract himself with Alph and the kid and the DT experiments. Papyrus’ oblivious enthusiasm, the flower’s snide insults and—

_Here yet there—red tipped green thorns digging into the cracked soul. A purred greeting neither of them wanted._

Resignation.

“I-it’s...j-just a little...” The rustle of cloth, and the blurred shadow shifted. Arm waving?

“Obvious?”

“Y-yeah…”

Rock scraped against rock. The sound of running water began to overpower the distant hum of the core.  He could hear the faint song of the river person. They _always_ seemed to be waiting when someone needed a ride. It was uncanny.

“Eh. It’s nothing a good nap won’t fix.”

A nap without a determination-induced headache sounded heavenly actually. There were two ways to restore magic. Sleep, and food. Guess which one came more naturally to him? Especially when he could barely muster the energy to stay upright and not nod off right there.

There was a reason Sans let Pap do all the cooking, even if the results were only marginally edible more often than not.

“I—just—t-text me when y-you get there okay— _wait you don’t have a phone—_ how do you survive without a phone? Oooh why didn’t I think of this back at the lab—I probably have enough spare parts to cobble together something—can you even see well enough to see the text? Maybe if I made the text white on black instead—”

“Alph…” He almost interrupted her. Then thought better of it. If she was geeking out over phones then at least she wasn’t fretting about him keeling head first into the river anymore. He just let her ramble, it wasn’t like she was actually dragging him back to get one. He did want to get home before Pap got off shift.

It’s not like getting a phone would matter anyway. So far each round hadn’t lasted long enough to get much use out of one.

“Tra-la-la~” A few more moments, and the river’s song was close enough to hear now. “Oh my, I thought I sensed visitors coming.”

The lazy river brushed up against Hotland’s warm stone, releasing the faint hiss of steam into the air. If he could hear that—oh Alphys wasn’t talking.

He turned his smile on her.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll get my bro to text you once he gets home. It shouldn’t be too long.”

The sentry perimeter shrunk as the dayglow crystals faded to night. The dogs made much better sentries after dark, even as they grumbled and drew lots to decide which poor schmuck had to sit out of their poker game that night.

“I hope so.”

The silence was only broken by the hiss of steam and the river person’s humming, content to wait for the moment.

“S-see you tomorrow.” She finally took a breath. The rustle of cloth returned along with her usual fidgeting. “Y-you will be by tomorrow, r-right?”

He shrugged. “I gotta be at my station, but I should be able to sneak away if you find anything.”

The second if hung unspoken between them. Assuming he had recovered by then. He wasn’t worried.

“S-stop b-by on the w-way, okay?”

A scrabble of claws against the warm stone, and Alphys fled.

Sans sighed, his shoulders slouching.

“Tra-la-la~” The river person continued to hum, “Tangled is the friendship lost to time.”

“Tell me about it. It’s knot the easiest thing to handle.” The grumble came out more of a whine than anything. Sans carefully picked his way to the edge of the landing. “Ya got room for another there?”

“Always~ I love company~”

The edge of the water was a slightly darker. He wished he could say he wasn’t nervous as he took that last step from stone to wood. It bobbed under his added weight. A disconcerting feeling when everything was shadows and shapes.

“Where to~? Let me guess, Snowdin~?”

“Yeah.”

“Tra-la-la~ away we go~”

The boat moved gently away from shore. Sans swayed even at the expected movement, before resigned himself to his fate and settled into a seated position behind the bulk of the cloaked monster. Hah. The River Person was even going easy on him.

Sans couldn’t see it, but a worried scientist was a white splotch against the red stairs, watching as the boat serenely floated down stream.

X-x-x

Heat faded to cool. Waterfall.  The river person continued to hum; the tune echoing through the dark halls, in harmony with the lapping waves.

“Tra-la-la~” The break in the song caught Sans’ attention. The hooded bulk of the ferrier hadn’t so much as shifted from their perch at the prow, “The waters are calm today. What do you think that means?”

Sans shrugged, peering back over the dark plane of the water, “Iunno. Maybe the fish are a little _tide.”_

The river person laughed, “Perhaps. Or perhaps they are listening. Be aware of the silence where there should be sound.”

Sans didn’t bother to ask for clarification once they started humming again, lost to the song of the water.

x-x-x

 

“ _S—ns!”_

 _Hiss_.

Static. But not in his head, for once. The faint, droning noise was from the television, somewhere to his left. It was soothing in a way.

The surface felt familiar. Lumpy in all the right places. He sank into the cushions like he’d worn a Sans-shaped hole into it.  Probably had. His limbs felt like lead even as he considered trying to move them.

Nah. Not worth it.

“ _SANS! WAKE UP!”_

Ugh. Fine.

_“I DIDN’T HEAR THAT!”_

“I said I’m coming.” Sans grumbled, sinking deeper into the dubious warmth of his jacket. “L...ater…”

 _“HOW DO YOU TAKE UP THE ENTIRE COUCH WHEN YOU ARE SO **SMALL**!” _ Oh no. Papyrus’ shouts were becoming less shout-y and more whine-y. Sans had a hard time resisting the whine-y ones. A faint nudge, but he was too close to sleep to care. “ _I WANNA WATCH COOKING WITH METTATON! AND IT’S ON IN FIVE MINUTES!_ ”

“ _OOOOH DON’T MAKE ME MOVE YOU!”_

“ _GAH. FINE. BUT DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU!”_

**PING.**

Pressure building, strong tethers closing around his soul. Panic rising, struggling to be free, the magic crushing their soul and—

Sans nipped the rogue panic in the bud. Nothin’ to worry about. Sans knew that comforting shade of blue better than anyone. Utterly gentle as gravity shifted and his soul was tugged upwards and Sans’ body went with it. Pap was always careful.

And then as quick as it happened, it faded. His Sans-shaped hole was slightly off as he settled back down, adjusted to be leaning against the smooth mass that now took up half of their little two-person couch.

_“OH BOTHER. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH YOU?”_

Papyrus’ glove rested on his chest like it was a makeshift arm-rest, his hip returning the favor by being a fairly comfortable pillow.

Sans was okay with this. The pressure slowly faded back to a dull thrum.

The droning static gave way to the cheery jingle of Papyrus’ favorite show.

Sans drifted back to sleep.

x-x-x

In the depths of their soul, Frisk hid. Non-existent hands covering their non-existent ears as they tried to block out his call.

They had just...wanted to help.

_Cracks and splinters as he fell apart in their hands. Nothing existed in this world except for them. Once he was gone, they’d be alone._

_They’d be alone and it’d reset and then— No. No. He promised. He promised!_

_He promised to stop them! If he was gone—if he was gone—_

_Everyone **else** had died. They couldn’t do this alone._

They hadn’t thought about it...just grabbed at them. Grabbed the shards. The dust. Grabbed and held and did what Frisk did best.

Stayed determined.

_“Y-you should be **dead—”**_

Determination kept them going. Kept them together. But still broken.

_“Extensive damage—”_

Still broken. Cracking more with each death. With each reload. They couldn’t save. They couldn’t continue. It just _kept_ reloading from the first and only save point.

And now…

_I’m just a bit more fragile than you’re used to._

They hadn’t considered their determination could be _hurting_ him.

_“Oh god—oh god—are you **okay**!?”_

They should leave. Should go.  Go where? Back to **them?** Float around until their determination eroded and their soul finally shattered?

Frisk once wanted to _save_ everyone. That decision had unleashed hell on their friends. Frisk then decided to _save_ a single person. And now they could be slowly killing him.

They could hear him calling, wandering the shadow of these dreams.

They made themselves small and tiny and quiet and wished they didn’t exist.

They should leave, but they didn’t need Alphys to tell them it was their Determination holding them _both_ together.

That would be selfish. It wasn’t just their soul to break any more.

 

 

 

X-x-x

Alphys kept glancing at the clock. And then her phone. And then the monitor. And then back to the clock.

She didn’t even have to find a window to know it was way passed night fade.

“S-surely he got home by now…” She muttered aloud, reaching for her phone. She—-she could message Papyrus…

Her claws curled. The pit of her stomach twisting uneasily.

_I’d rather not worry Pap about this._

It—she’d—Alphys sighed. Dropping it.

“H-he’ll be by tomorrow…”

She nibbled at the inside of her cheek, forcing her attention back to the monitor and the computer drawn diagram depicted on it. There was something _off_ about the red soul—well. More so than the mind-numbing fact that it _existed_.

It almost seemed…too small…

Like something was missing.

X-x-x

“Golly Chara, you always make that look easy. It didn’t even take you three turns this time!”

I wipe the dust from the toy knife, barely sparing a glance for the dust covered robe Azzy was inspecting.  I press the edge against our— **my—** finger. “What can I say? I’ve had a lot of practice.”

It always made me smile, thinking that this dull blade could cut through cloth and fur and even bone while it barely even left a dent against my skin. It had rankled at first, being reduced to whatever I could scavenge from the ruins, but I’d come to appreciate the irony when I’d twisted it into the back of that stupid skeleton.

“You just made your creepy face!” Azzy giggled. Leaves curling as the yellow-petals bounced, “You have a plan don’t you? I can help!”

“Don’t worry Azzy, you’ll help a _lot.”_ The direct approach hadn’t worked. I could clear the ruins in less than a day, but I could only accumulate so much EXP from such weaklings.  I needed more. “But we’ll need to be _discreet._ ”

Azzy—Flowey grinned.

This was my story now.

I could feel the save file. Close. So close. But I couldn’t _quite_ reach it. My frankensteined soul not quite _solid_ enough to make that final stretch.

I had a boss to defeat, and I had to do it just _right_. Last time had confirmed it. If I just killed him, my partner would reload.

I would take back my prize, and then the ending would be _mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transitional chapter!
> 
> Not gonna lie, I kinda wanna draw the couch scene at the end.
> 
> ...actually I want to draw a few scenes. Not sure if I'm skilled enough tho.


	9. Chapter 9

_Be aware of silence where there should be sound._

The River Person’s quip seemed especially poignant against the utter stillness of his sentry point. Sans turned the words over in his head, his back to the cold, smooth stone of the ruin’s door. The still _closed_ door. Considering he’d been knocked out for a good twelve hours recovering, he’d half expected to find it wide open when he arrived. The first time had been three days. Last time had been midafternoon on the second day.

The anomaly—the demon child—wasn’t bound by any sort of script. He couldn’t afford to waste time.

A particularly cutting breeze knifed through him, slipping through layers as if they were nothing. Sans shivered. He didn’t even _have_ skin.

_Hot. Cold. Why the heck was he getting so sensitive to them?_

_Bzzt._

The pocket of his jacket buzzed.

A brief moment of confusion.

_Bzzt._

Again. Sans gave up trying to rub warmth into his arms, fumbling a numb hand into the pocket of his jacket. Stiff fingerbones curled around plastic.

He hadn’t had a phone in a long time. Not since...well, not since he worked in Hotland really. They’d been a big thing back then. Newly invented to run on the waves set out by the upgraded CORE. He even still had a prototype back in the workshop. Somewhere. An old dinosaur he wasn’t sure would even work nowadays.

Alphys’ gift buzzed at him again. Insistent. A green light flashing urgently as he pulled it free of fabric.

White text on a black window, the message popped up.

_*Aren’t you freezing?_

Sans looked from the small piece of tech in his hand, and then over towards the camera hidden in the bush near the door. He couldn’t see it nestled in the snow covered leaves, although he knew it was there.

...did it have audio capability? He wasn’t sure. If so, he had to count himself lucky that Alph either hadn’t seen his run ins with the demon child, or didn’t remember them. “Whelp. Guess _someone’s_ been spying.”

Really, he should have expected it. Get her attention and she got pretty...hooked. Always had.

The response was delayed by a few noticeable minutes. Probably just long enough for Alphys to untangle her thoughts and stop sputtering at being called out like that. The next message put any doubts  to rest.

_*I’m just checking up on you!_

The next set of messages came immediately afterwards.

* _I finished the DT scans we took this morning._

_*I’m worried. They aren’t snapping back to the levels we established yesterday._

First she got after him for being too _determined_. And now this? At least he could nearly see properly again, and his bad eye hadn’t leaked in hours. Pap had complained at him for it flickering over breakfast, in between concerned glances and wondering if he was sick because he was up so early. At least the he had an excuse for that. Even someone as lazy as Sans would be off schedule if they’d slept twelve hours straight.

 _*Isn’t that a good thing?_ He sent back, stiff fingerbones a little awkward as he moved to navigate the unfamiliar pad. He hadn’t even wanted the thing, but Alphys had shoved it into his hands the moment she saw him this morning. Right before awkwardly scolding him for not letting her know he got home okay and then demanding yet _another_ scan. _*I’d like to avoid another overload, thanks._

_*Normally yes, but I also see signs of increased strain that didn’t exist yesterday as well. Are they hurting? Helping? We just don’t have enough data. They are low for a human. Dangerously high for a monster. I’ve been trying to do some research to establish an optimal range, but your situation doesn’t match anything we have about monsters taking a human soul._

Well, it wasn’t like they had much to go on anyway. The possibility of a monster taking a human’s soul was cited as the driving factor behind the war ages ago, but in practice it happened so rarely that all that was left were stories and legends. Transformation. Godlike power. Sans wasn’t particularly sorry about missing those. The excess determination was giving him enough trouble, and he didn’t want to imagine the bother it would be to get the hang of a new body. Getting used to having his vision halved unless he was actively using his magic was annoying as it was.

 _*I’m no boss monster._ Sans texted back. * _I’m not really made to handle unlimited cosmic power._

 _*There’s only been one case of a boss taking a human soul._ He liked to imagine her exasperated sigh right here, tapping her claw impatiently against the tablet. Probably with a lot more stuttering. * _Prince Asriel’s story is the most famous, yes, but before the war most of the recorded cases of soul theft were  from normal monsters who happened to be at the right place at the right time._

 _*I didn’t actually steal the soul, Alph._ Sans felt oddly certain of that. Even in his initial plan, he’d never expected to kill them for good. Just to stall them until they gave up and reset again. If he managed it, in a timeline where the kid had chosen death, he would have dragged the human’s dying body to the king and had him deal with it.

Sans had _never_ wanted that sort of responsibility. Funny how he ended up stuck with it anyway.

* _You believe they chose this?_

_I THINK THEY JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO ALONE._

_Small arms tightened around his neck amidst a field of flowers._

_...don’t leave…_

Fragments of fragments. But Sans felt positive.

* _Given the options...yeah. I do._

Alphys’ response took a few moments.

_*I’ll take that under advisement. Coexistence rather than subservience would make more sense if it was willing. It may make the eventual extraction easier too._

...extraction.

_Small fists banging helplessly against metal._

Terror. Panic that wasn’t his own. Sans screwed his eyes shut.

_Suffocating. Their soul was stretching. They felt it being pulled away. Ripping. Tearing. Bits and pieces missing, flaking away as the other tried desperately to hold on._

_Breaking. Cracking under the strain. But something forced the fragments back together. Healing the wounds. Only there was no way to heal when the wounds were gaping holes where hate and despair had been stripped away._

_They were broken. Floating in nothing. Terrified. **Alone.**_

Sans hung his head in his hands. He half expected the pressure to be pounding against his skull. But nothing. Just silence and despair and echoes of the past. That was almost worse. No physical pain, but a yawning pit of melancholy opening beneath his feet.

He couldn’t even _hug_ the kid. Damn this was frustrating.

If he didn’t do something, they’d both end up drowning.

_Bzzt._

_Bzzt._

_Bzzt._

The buzzing was insistent. It took more willpower than it should to get him to open his eyes and comprehend the white letters.

* _What happened?_

_*Sans?_

_*Are you okay?_

It was hard to think to form words, but he fumbled the best he could.

_*ok_

_Bzzt._

_Bzzt._

_*Ok? Okay what?_

_*If you don’t respond properly I’m going to call your brother!_

His brother.

A blanket. A sweater. A pair of socks.

A sweater he was wearing right now, beneath his jacket. Fuzzy and warm, with a single grey stripe. A sweater Pap had brought to them, wrapped around three containers.

_You think of half-frozen spaghetti. Hand made and nearly inedible._

The emptiness shrank back before memories of his brother’s kindness. Settling back to a dull ache of misery.

Breath rattled in his ribcage as he took a deep gulp of air, the icy grip of despair loosening around his soul. He didn’t necessarily need it, but the repetitive motion made him feel a little better.

* _I’m ok. Kid’s having problems, but I’m ok._

He was starting to miss the pounding headache. At least that meant the kid was determined. Not this...whatever it was.

* _Problems?_

_*What kind of problems?_

She expected _him_ to know?

_*Remember your graphs? I think we just hit a trough._

Extracted human souls were stable. Living souls...well. They apparently could have crises of hope just like any other monster.

_*I need to get you a mobile monitor._

Oh please no. As scientifically interesting as it would be to see their mental state mapped out every second of every day, that was one can of worms he wasn’t sure he wanted to show the world.

_*This is what I meant. This isn’t healthy, having something else affecting your soul to this extreme. We should try and remove it._

The response was immediate. Sans was prepared for it this time. He caught the rising panic and held it instead, bombarding it with the strong warm memories of his brother. Of watching him steam under too many puns. Motherhenning them during healing sessions. Half-frozen spaghetti and a nice warm blanket. Half listening to the resigned grumblings as Papyrus let them nap on his lap.

Slowly it faded.

Sans let out a breath he hadn’t meant to be holding.

* _Alph._ His hands were shaking as he typed out the message. * _Do me a favor and **never** suggest that again. Ok?_

She didn’t answer. Sans slid the phone back into his pocket, letting the silence of the snow-covered wilderness fill the void.

x-x-x

“ _SANS! BROTHER!”_

Right on schedule, his brother’s shouts echoed down the path. Sans had been steeling himself for Papyrus’ lunch-time check in. He wasn’t sure he wanted to face his brother with the kid’s melancholy still rattling around in their soul…

But then again, Pap almost always put a real smile on his face. Decided, Sans pushed himself off the ground, shaking himself to rid himself of the snow that had slowly accumulated on his shoulders. He knew where he was, and exactly where he wanted to go.

A single step, and Sans was leaning back in the chair of his sentry station. His brother’s shadow was turned away, probably peering down the path toward the bridge.

“S’up bro?”

Papyrus whirled around instantly. “DON’T YOU S’UP ME, BROTHER! WHY AREN’T YOU EVER AT YOUR STATION? YOU WERE EVEN SO EAGER TO COME BACK TO WORK TODAY, AND NOW I FIND YOU BOONDOGGLING?”

“Just went for a walk, bro. Union regulated breaks and all that.” Papyrus never did seem surprised by Sans’ willingness to ignore time and space. Sans had a feeling he’d long since destroyed any sense of normalcy Pap had ever had  when it came to that. “After all that sleep my joints are a little stiff.”

“YOU SLEEP MORE THAN THAT ON A NORMAL DAY! AND WE DON’T EVEN _HAVE_ A UNION!”

“Maybe I made one?” Sans grinned, “Sleepy Skeleton Sentries United. Wanna join, bro? You’re qualified. Except maybe for the sleepy bit.”

“OF COURSE I CAN’T JOIN, YOU BONEHEAD. I’M THE ONE WHO ASSIGNS YOUR SHIFT. YOU CAN’T ORGANIZE AGAINST YOURSELF.”

“That’s too bad. The initiation is rather fun. I was looking forward to teaching you some great knock knock jokes.”

If Papyrus had skin, he’d be nearly turning red. Complete with steam roiling from his ears. A strangled sigh escaping from his clenched jaw. Sans was pleased with his handiwork. One of life’s simple pleasures.  So pleased that the heavy grip around his soul loosened. Messing with Pap always helped him stop thinking about the deja vu.

Sometimes ya just had to lighten up and appreciate some good ol’ fashioned ribbing.

Oh that was a good one. Too bad it was only in his head.

“I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS ANYWAY. HAVE YOU SEEN ANYONE COME THIS WAY TODAY?”

“Nope.”

“DRAT.”

What? Nothing about puzzles and recalibrating and humans? The lines weren’t always the same, because Sans had stopped bothering with the script. But some things didn’t change very much “Is something wrong bro?”

“YOU KNOW THE HOODLUMS WHO LIKE TO SKULK AROUND OUTSIDE TOWN? PRANKING EVERYONE WITH THEIR BULLETS?”

“Yea. What about ‘em? They don’t really come this far out.”

“I KNOW, BUT—WELL—JERRY’S MOTHER CAME TO ME THIS MORNING, SAYING HER SON HADN’T COME HOME LAST NIGHT. I ASKED IF SHE’D ASKED HIS FRIENDS, BUT THEY SAID THEY DITCHED HIM SO NO LEADS THERE. DOGAMY AND DOGRESSA ARE TRYING TO TRACK HIM BY SCENT CLOSER TO TOWN, BUT I DIDN’T WANT ANYONE SAYING THE GREAT PAPYRUS WASN’T THOROUGH WITH HIS INVESTIGATION! I FIGURED I’D START HERE AND WORK BACKWARDS IN CASE THEY WERE PLAYING A BAD PRANK AND HIDING OUT TO WORRY PEOPLE. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT? PURPOSEFULLY MAKING OTHER PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT YOU? IT’S TERRIBLE!”

“Yeah. Terrible.” Sans wanted to frown. Shooting a glance back down the path. _Be aware of the silence._ “I can keep an eyesocket out, bro, but it’s always pretty quiet out here.”

“TELL ME ABOUT IT. NONE OF THE OTHER SENTRIES REMEMBER SEEING HIM, BUT I WOULDN’T TRUST THEIR MEMORIES AS FAR AS I CAN THROW THEM. THEY BARELY THINK ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN TREATS AND PETS! EVEN THE GREATEST OF INVESTIGATORS LIKE MYSELF NEED LEADS!”

_Fried snow._

Sans blinked.

_“I’ve been thinking about selling treats too. Wanna buy some fried snow?”_

He...that sounded like his voice. He’d...been considering a prank involving fried snow ever since the Nice Cream Vendor set up shop, but hadn’t found the right vic—time for it. He’d almost forgotten about it. It had been...before he started tracking the resets. That felt like such a _long_ time ago, even if the rest of the world only knew it as a few days.

Nothing. Sans turned the memory fragment over as Papyrus continued to rant about the injustice. _If_ he had run into a half decent human, it would have been the perfect opportunity but…

 _I don’t remember everything kid._ Sans thought, _Especially the happy things._

An ink stained photograph, slowly blotting out the smiling faces.

A faint pressure. Insistent. It burned distantly, shrouded. But present.

 _—selling treats_ **_too_** _._

The light bulb clicked.

“Hey, bro?” He waved to catch his brother’s attention, “Did ya check with the Nice Cream guy? He might have had a nice view.”

“NYEH?” Papyrus froze mid-flourish. One red glove went to his chin, brow furrowed in thought, “I HADN’T CONSIDERED THAT! SUCH A LOCATION WOULD BE PERFECT TO SPOT OUR WAYWARD TEEN IF HE’D TRAVERSED TO THIS SIDE OF THE BRIDGE! STAY VIGILANT BROTHER! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ON THE CASE ONCE MORE! NYEH HEH HEH!”

Sans watched the clouds of snow kicked up by his brother as he zoomed off, running full tilt back toward the path to Snowdin.

_Silence where there should be sound._

The river person’s words haunted him—his gaze was drawn back toward the bridge and Pap’s too wide fence. And beyond that to the door. He sat up, slippers crunching in the packed snow. And then _stepped._

Heavy stone rose above him. Stray bits of snow were lodged in the carving that decorated the door. The Delta Rune. The symbol of the kingdom.

He...had to check.

His magic flared as the world brightened, the edge of stone wreathed in a faint cyan aura.

The remaining  pressure behind his eye strengthened hesitantly, the familiar trickle of red magic rolling down his cheek. Oh _now_ the kid wanted to be determined. Ah well. He could use this. He braced himself, making sure he had a tether on every edge of carved stone.

Then pulled.

They didn’t so much as budge. Locked from within. All of Snowdin knew that. So why…?

The aura faded. Sluggishly.

Relief battled with worry. He was right. It hadn’t been opened. They _couldn’t_ have left. Something nagged at him.

Something had changed. It had to.

But how? It should be a ripple effect. The only people who _could_ change should be the demon, and him. The doors were locked. That meant the demon-child _should_ still be contained within the ruins for now. He’d gone to Alphys, but she never left the lab. Her influence would be minimal.

But, it could be _helpful._

He turned to the camera, and reached for the phone. He had no idea how long she kept the security footage from the various cameras but it was worth a shot—

“ _Whoooo is theeeeeere~?”_

The sing-song voice drifted through stone, freezing him mid-message.

A step, and he was down the path, away from the door, magic flaring and pulling bone-shaped constructs out of thin air in preparation.

The demon’s mocking laughter followed him.

But the doors remained closed and the laughter faded away.

They were _Acting_ again.

Why?

 _*Keep an eye out for my bro, ok?_ He debated the text. Alphys hadn’t texted him back since...earlier. But he ended up sending it anyway. She had cameras everywhere.

Last time they Acted because they knew Pap would make him flinch.

A thorny vine coiled around his—their—soul.

_A nightmarish face._

The demon was accounted for, and it’s not like the flower could get out of the ruins either.

Right?

X-x-x

Alphys flipped through the windows, each one showing nearly identical looking snowy landscapes. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for.

_Keep an eye out for my bro, ok?_

Keep an eye out for what? Sans had refused to answer any of her questions after that. Even when she’d threatened to text papyrus. He’d called her bluff. Of course she was too timid to outright do that, especially as she watched the excitable skeleton dart back and forth across Snowdin’s icy outskirts, flicking from camera to camera. Looking for something? He’d met up with nearly every member of the canine unit at one point or another during the day.

It was weird. The guard was mobilizing. She’d thought they were sentries. Had something happened?

Undyne would know. Alphys glanced at her phone, deflating at the lack of notifications. Undyne must have left her cellphone at home again. Or didn’t hear it. Or it’d been crushed under the weight of her armor. Or accidently rattled free when she suplexed a training dummy. Alphys knew all the reasons. They’d all happened at one point or another.

A set of keystrokes, and she flicked the camera back to 01 — the site of the doorway to Old Home. He was still there, a dark silhouette waiting behind one of the trees off to the edge of the path. She squinted at the patch of slightly off color darkness. At the trickle of determination casting an eerie shadow against his skull.

Asgore help her, she _trusted_ him. Despite the impossibility of everything, she _believed_ him.

That didn’t mean all this secrecy was an easy pill to swallow.

What was he waiting for?

Why Old Home?

That was where—they fell wasn’t it? The human? Historically, they always fell in the ruins. The king had long since gotten some flying monsters to map the cavern ceiling. The only fissure large enough was in the ruins. They always would come through that door. Or theoretically through the barrier itself. But none ever came that way.

But Sans _had_ their soul. The—nightmare—was _never_ going to happen now. It couldn’t. The red soul in his—as worrying as its presence was—was proof of that.

Right?

**_Don’t ever steal from me again_ **

She shivered, hunching into the safety of her labcoat.

Just a draft.

Sans _must_ have jumped the human as soon as they fell. It was the only explanation for him to have the soul.

So _why_ was he still watching Old Home?

_Keep an eye out for my bro, ok?_

She wished he would tell her why.

Reluctantly she switched cameras. The sleepy town of Snowdin unfolded before her. The windows glowed against the darkness of night. She fiddled with the zoom, pointing the tiny camera at the house on the far edge of town.

Lights still on. No fresh footprints in the snow. Hopefully Papyrus would stay put for the night now so she could finally get some work done.

She’d just finished setting up her remote alert system when she heard something. Something soft. A _fwip_ sound.

She frowned.

_The door?_

She turned.

_Nothing._

Nothing out of place.

 _You are just being paranoid, Alphys._ She told herself, berating the immediately cautious thought. _No one_ came to visit her. Not since she’d barricaded herself inside. Hiding from the questions. The letters. The guilt—

_Breathe._

She did.

There was no reason to be worried. The Nightmare was just that. A nightmare.

She had DT models to run. Scenarios to simulate. Numbers to crunch.

_Brrrrrrrt._

A mechanical whirring. Alphys paused again.

She _had_ to be hearing things. There’s no way that was the elevator running.

...Maybe she should check on it. Just in case.

She grabbed her phone, shuffling across the lab, passed her desk and the refrigerator, to the opaque glass door that hid the entrance to the underground elevator…

_Fwip._

The door slid open at her approach.

Her voice caught in her throat.

Red thorned vines were impaled in the control panel, snaking up and around to completely block the door.

...maybe it hadn’t been her imagination at all. Claws quivering, she hit the call button.


	10. Chapter 10

“WHY.”

Alphys winced. Peeking around the door frame.

“WON’T.”

Energy sheared down. The roiling edges flared, tainting the outer ridge of the construct a cool mint green. It tore through the first layer of vines with single slice. Even as the spear was coming back for a second swing, more thorny vines squirmed out of growing cracks in the wall, throwing themselves up to block the way again.

“YOU.”

More vines shot out, wrapping around Undyne’s armored gauntlet. But the darksteel blunted the thorns, a second slice of the spear and it was severed, just to have another take its place. Alphys took one look at her furious face, yellow eyes almost pupiless in rage, and then ducked out again.

_“DIIIIIIE!”_

She was blushing wasn’t she. Her face felt hot as she hid it in her claws.

Metal screeched.

“RAAAAGH!”

Throaty and raw and so full of frustration. And fury. Magic crackled, and it sent shivers through her hide. Alphys could feel the charge even all the way out here, sparking the air. Protection magic, sharpened and honed to an edge that could cut nearly anything. The pure _will_ and focus required to twist a magic type that traditionally produced barriers and healing...

Oh dang it. She _loved_ her. Her passion. Her strength. _Everything._

Something— _many things_ —seemed to explode. Alphys was halfway into a protective curl as it was, so she braced herself as the buildup exploded outward, both physically and mystically shaking the _entire lab._ Oh god she’d need to check the monitoring equipment after this. The lab was insulated, but bleed over could be catastrophic to her data—she had backed it up right? And the samples _should_ be safe in the fridges—

“ _HAH!_ Take THAT you possessed pansy!” The triumphant crow grabbed her by the spine and pulled, jerking her out of the downward spiral her thoughts had taken. She scrambled to her feet just as a battered, but overtly smug looking Undyne poked her head through the door. “HEY ALPHYS!” The shout washed over her. Undyne seemed to have a few scuffs and nicks in her armor, and she looked more than a little disheveled, but that just served to make her look even _more_ beautiful. “I found the thing powering those vines. Want it?”

A box of faintly green magic shimmered above Undyne’s gauntleted hand, an oblong white seed pulsing in its confines. It glowed faintly, a fairly strong magic signature pulsing off the construct. It almost seemed familiar as Alphys pulled herself together long enough to form the rudimentary shape of her scanner, the yellow magic carrying basic statistics back to her. Having been removed from the vines, the seed was fading fast.

“N-no. I-it’s about spent anyway—” Alphys stuttered, cutting off as Undyne’s triumphant grin turned downwards, “I—I mean—I just don’t t-think—constructs don’t last long o-once removed—”

“Che, that’s fine. You know the nerd stuff.” An ear shattering crack, and Undyne crushed the seed in her fist. Alphys winced, watching the motes of magic dust trailing from her gauntlet’d fingers “You said there isn’t any way out other than that elevator?”

Alphys shook her head.

Well. Other than teleporting.

Undyne flashed an uneven toothy grin that made her heart flutter pleasantly. Until Alphys processed just what she said.

“It’ll be a long fall then! Hang on tight!”

“H-hang o—” She was barely able to repeat the first word before undyne was grabbing her by the labcoat, unconcernedly throwing Alphys’ much smaller body over her shoulder and striding back into the small side room. “U-Undyne—wait—I—”

And the Alphys froze.

The elevator was _gone._ Completely torn to _shreds._ Gashes littered the walls, most were the right size and shape to be from Undyne’s spear. A few were much smaller, the scraping of thorns. The entire room was littered with _dust._ It made Alphys sneeze uncomfortably. From the vines?

“The annoying bullet was bunkered down inside, and I think I hit the cable.” Undyne shrugged in response to Alphys’ choke, “Hey!  If the punk who set this up is still down there at least he won’t be able to escape!”

“B—but I can’t get down!” Alphys struggled, but she felt oddly helpless. If she shifted too much—what if she tumbled off? “I—you—I—”

Oh god.

Undyne in the Lab.

No.

No-nonono

She had to—

“Uh-huh. Super-secret scientist stuff. I got that much when you called me here.” A metal clad finger flicked her snout. Alphys flinched. Blinking. Undyne took a step toward the broken elevator shaft. Alphys forced her eyes away from the yawning blackness and the shadows of the mangled elevator car meters below them. She instead focused on the strong silhouette of Undyne’s face, the gleam of her teeth in the lights filtering in from the main lab. “I’m the captain of the Royal Guard! It’s my calling to hunt down rule-breaking punks like this! You don’t want to tangle with the criminal responsible for this mess, do you?”

Well. The source of _half_ of it was currently holding her with a terrifying grin.

“...no…” Alphys squeaked. “B-but—”

“Great! It’s settled then!”

Metal clanking as Undyne took another step. Alphys could feel the metal and muscle shifting beneath her. Darksteel gauntlets tightened.

Alphys screwed her eyes shut as Undyne threw them both into the abyss. 

Later, Alphys would admit she couldn’t remember _anything_ from those terrifying moments of freefall, but somehow she ended up moved from Undyne’s shoulder into her arms between jumping and landing against the broken remains of the elevator car. Alphys shivered, her heart racing as she clung to the scuffed plates of Undyne’s armor. Her claws clenching so tight she _had_ to be adding to the visible scratches in the darksteel.

“See? Piece of cake!”

Alphys couldn’t breathe.

Undyne.

The Lab.

What would Undyne say? What would Alphys _do?_

Undyne tried to settle her down on her feet. Alphys wanted to collapse into a pile of quivering jelly. She wouldn’t let herself. She just—needed to keep going. By some miracle she kept standing, barely processing as Undyne grunted and cursed, working to clear the debris blocking the exit by hand.

After a few moments she lost patience, slicing the thing to tiny metal ribbons in a furious flash of white and green magic. Darksteel gauntlets closed tight around the shaft, reflecting the mint-green glow. That glow was really the only concentrated source of light as they stepped out into the long hallway. Alphys fretted, bustling ahead to check the first display. Normally it would flare on at a touch, but instead it stayed dark.

“Y-you might have t-tripped the s-surge p-protection.” Alphys didn’t know whether to feel apologetic or relieved. On the one hand, it meant she’d need to flip the back-up power, to get more than just the emergency lights working properly, but on the other…

At least Undyne wouldn’t see her notes. It’s not like she could easily fix it without unlocking the elevator.

“This is freaking creepy.” Undyne sniffed, stamping the butt of her spear against the ground once before striding forward, “You stay behind me, got it? I’m gonna find that punk and make them APOLOGIZE for that mess. Freaking VINES. I mean REALLY? You know this place, Alphys, where do you think they would have gone?”

“I—I—” She stopped, “I—don’t know?”

Undyne stopped, turning to give her a mild look. Alphys Eep’ed.

It was very undignified.

“Well. Do you have any anti-human death lasers stashed out down here?”

“Uh...n-no?”

“Killer robots?”

“I—I might have some of Mettaton’s prototypes lying around…”

“What the HELL do you do down here?!”

Alphys flinched.

“M-mostly medical...research?”

Undyne hrumphed, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like ‘ _boring.’_ “Okay then. I’LL lead and you yell at me if you think of anything.”

Alphys shuffled after her as Undyne stomped down the hall, worrying at her coat. Where would they have gone? _What_ did she have that was of use to an intruder? Or even of any value? The equipment was too big to transport easily, and she didn’t _have_ the human souls anymore. She’d sent them back to Asgore after...it was clear the DT treatments weren’t working. She didn’t even think she _had_ anything lef—

_Determination._

Oh god. She still had some of the DT she’d gathered from _Sans._

“Undyne!”

Her screech echoed down the hall. The royal guard turned with a rough, “What?”

“I—samples. T-there’s—samples of a substance that’s fairly dangerous if handled wrong. I keep them—in the cold room. Waaaay in the back! Past the elevator—”

“There’s another elevator!?” Undyne cut her off. “Then they could have escaped!”

“I—yes—I mean no! I mean—it’s _locked._ I—keep it locked down since it leads right to the king’s castle. I—privacy, you know?”

Privacy, and unethical secret research on human souls and _monster_ souls.

Oh god what was she going to _do—_

“Oh _WHATEVER._ We’ve got some ass to kick. C’mon, keep up!”

Alphys kept jumping at shadows, but nothing seemed amiss as they navigated the halls. Although undyne did give a dirty look to the heavily reinforced door blocking the path to the elevator. But the locks still glowed faintly, showing they remained untouched so the fish-woman ended up leaving it be for now. Alphys had all four keys in her pocket.

She definitely understood Undyne’s paranoia. Those vines had done a number on her darksteel armor. That strength...well, even if the doors were reinforced, Alphys was suddenly doubting they could hold up to a determined assault.

At least the intruder had to still be here. That seemed to mollify Undyne somewhat. If mollify meant had the captain was rambling _loudly_ about what she was going to do with the unfortunate soul when she caught them as Alphys directed her to the door leading into the main diagnostic room. It was just through here, and then to the left—passed the DT Extractor—

“A-AND then I’m gonna string ‘em up by their toes—or roots—or claws—and get my neighbor to blast that spook wave trash at—”

Alphys coughed. “Uhm. U-undyne?”

“WHAT?” The captain turned, her question delivered...er...forcefully enough to echo tellingly down the hallway.

“E-er—um—shouldn’t we be—y-you know—trying to—uh—sneak up on them?”

And the less noise they made, the less a chance for drawing the amalgamates. At least she’d fed them this morning so they wouldn’t be _too_ forceful. The last thing she wanted was to try and explain _why_ undyne _shouldn’t_ immediately skewer the—admittedly terrifying looking—poor creatures

“Sneaking is for _wimps.”_ Undyne huffed, “But I _guess_ if they hear us coming they can set up another of those ANNOYING vine traps.”

Alphys let out a sigh of relief as they made it through the ward without further comment. Undyne’s clanking was rather...uh...regrettable, but small victories. Movement out of the corner of her eye—a flash of white? Tall and thin fading into existence behind them nearly gave her a heart attack.

“U—uh, it’s to the left!” Alphys quickly motioned toward the correct path before the guardswoman decided to take another quick look around. So far so good— _you can do this Alphys. Just keep it together. Maybe we won’t run into one of them? Maybe the intruder just trashed the elevator and left? Maybe—_

“What the HECK is THAT?!”

Alphys peered nervously around Undyne’s armored bulk as she settled into a wary stance. Maybe she’d just seen the DT extractor? Even Alphys had to admit the skull-like shape gave _her_ the creeps and she’d built the thi—

That _smell_. And that white puddle—white and twitching against the dark-tiled floor—

“Oh god! LEMON!”  She didn’t think, just sprinted passed, only to get plucked into the air by the back of her coat, “Let me go Undyne! I need to make sure they are okay!”

“You—know that thing?”

“I—I—it’s—YES! NOW PUT ME DOWN!”

She was dropped like a sack of potatoes. Alphys barely registered the shock because she was too busy scrambling to the amalgamate’s side. The tangy smell of citrus overwhelmed her, but she was used to it. Yellow magic responded sluggishly. The presence of multiple souls _melted_ together always scrambled the HP numbers, but the bar was faintly visible amongst the noise. It blinked in the corner of her vision, a dull red. More than a sliver, but _definitely_ low enough to worry. She—she hadn’t thought they could be hurt. They—really—

“It’s okay, Lemon.” Alphys knelt next to the amalgamate. Hovering, but not touching. She had lived with her mistakes so long that she knew their quirks. The Endogeny loved petting and playing. Lemon Bread...didn’t. Lemon Bread hated being touched. Instead she hummed a soft tune, the—oh god it was nearly formless. She hadn’t seen it this bad since they’d first began to...melt. It had taken a while for them to settle. It had been terrifying, watching as her patients slowly collapsed together. “I p-promise. It’s okay. Y-you’re okay.”

Alphys continued humming, the puddle of melted monster shuddered, a garbled croon escaping the twitching mass. It inched closer. She heard the clank of armor behind her. But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t flinch even as the white and grey goop congealed, pulling itself closer. Climbling. Clinging to Alphys’ labcoat. Undyne’s sharp intake of breath didn’t matter as Lemon Bread’s wicked looking teeth began to become distinct. Forming head, neck and even the hint of a well-muscled arm.

They crawled onto Alphys’ small lap. Nearly dwarfing her in a puddle of still mostly indistinct monster goop. They mewled pitifully at her in that garbled echoing voice. Shuddering even as they shoved their head under her hand. Quivering.

“I—It’s okay…” She nearly couldn’t breathe. She gently lowered her quivering claws onto the firm—but still not _quite_ solid spine that made up the amalgamate’s head. The faint red bar blinked at her. She—couldn’t heal. And the stabilizer chamber was too far and—and would need to be set up a-and—“U-undyne?”

“Yeah, Alphys?”

She...sounded off. Alphys didn’t look up from the amalgamate. It wouldn’t let her move to turn anyway.

“C-could you do me a favor? T-there’s a vending machine. C-could you g-get a few packets of chisps for me?”

Monster food would help. The magic woven into it would help. It was something that could _help._ Lemon didn’t deserve this.

Undyne didn’t respond. But Alphys hoped the echoing sound of her boots down the hall meant yes.

Waiting for Undyne to return felt like an eternity. Alphys tried to keep humming. Singing. It was one of the few ways to keep Lemon Bread calm. If it was distressed enough to _want_ contact, she winced at the mere thought of how much pain it was in. This—it was weird. Wrong. They—she’d never tried to _hurt_ them of course, but the amalgamates never seemed to feel pain. She’d seen the endogeny rocket straight into a wall and bounce off, dazed but utterly unharmed. They even got in fights with Lemon Bread occasionally. Endogeny was super affectionate, while Lemon _hated it._ Normally.

Normally.

“Oh this is just adorable! The NERD and her failure.”

The voice giggled. Alphys flinched, tightening her grip around the suddenly even MORE distressed Lemon Bread. She frantically looked for the source. _Dang it Alphys. Did you forget why you are even **down** here?!_

She’d even sent away their only protector without thinking. Okay. So she _had_ been thinking, but she’d been thinking about Lemon Bread and their pain and the best way to help—

Something emerged from behind the DT extractor, suspended in the center of the room. Something green and coiling with a familiar white face and bright yellow petals.

_Oh no._

The world went dark. A jolt ran through her as her weak magic hummed in response.

Oh no. Oh no no no.

She couldn’t _fight._ Lemon Bread was in no shape for this, trying to vain to pull themselves together, hissing and sensing the change in atmosphere. But they were too hurt. Too weak.

What could she do to protect them? _Herself?_

“Howdy!” The face peered down at her. Bright and cheerful. Everything suddenly seemed perfectly clear and crisp. “Golly, it’s been aaaaages hasn’t it, doctor?”

Alphys quivered. Her mind blanked. She—

_The flower is gone._

_What happens when you give something without a soul, the will to live?_

“I thought something was off when you were watching the cameras so soon. Some things aren’t supposed to change.” A vine uncurled from the main mass. Alphys felt her heart run cold. The reinforced glass was frosted, but she could see the glowing color through the semi-opaque container. “I found some... _interesting_ things while poking around. I mean really.”

“The King never had a **red** soul. So where did you find this?” That innocent smile morphed, laughter bubbling free like an undammed river, “That **IDIOT** told you didn’t he? After this long, I thought he had a shred of sense! If you already know—I already have what I came for, so let’s have a bit of _fun_ while the shark is away! I never did get to play properly with _you_ , and this is too great to pass up.”

Something shattered, raining red drenched shards from above. The amalgamate howled as gravity drew the razor shards into its amorphous body. Multiple voices echoing and blending with pain and fury. Alphys was shielded by most of it’s bulk, but the impact had thrown them in a wide spray, a few small shards knifing through coat and hide. Blood trickled down her back, staining the white coat. Was it blood? Burning with magic that wasn’t magic. Distantly, over the many-voiced scream, she could still hear him. Cackling like a hyena.

Magic burned. The amalgamate surged, dragging her with it. They were hurt. They were weak. But they weren’t backing down. Not to the one who hurt them. And somehow Alphys knew it had been the flower to hurt them. Hurt them with white seeds and vines backed with determination that exceeded their own.

They...had to protect. It pushed them forward, even while they were falling apart.

It was...so sticky.

She didn’t...

... _didn’t want to **die**._

X-x-x

Frisk shivered. Their soul pulsing rapidly. Something had shifted. Something was _wrong._

_“Kid?”_

The distant question prodded at them. Frisk shrunk, trying to curl in on themselves. They didn’t mean to let it bleed through. Didn’t want to be a bother.

The dark-red of Frisk’s headspace shifted as they felt themselves being drawn out into their shared soul. Shapes began to press themselves into the darkness, shadows of trees and snow and _the_ door and blurry and distant numb chill seeping into their very being. All as if seen through a red-glass lens.

“ _Che.”_

Frisk heard Sans tsk, felt him—them pull the furred hood up around his—their face-skull. Frisk flinched back from the ghostly brush of fur against his-their cheek. They tried to pull away, back into the isolation of their soul alone, but Sans wouldn’t let go. He seemed to be getting better at that.

“C’mon kid. Talk to me.”

The words hung in the chill air. Frisk felt them vibrate in his—their bones. They felt a bit like— _them_ when they did this. They never wanted to be like them.

But Sans was waiting, and the aching hole in their heart was hurting.

It wasn’t anything.

Just their imagination.

_You feel like you just lost something._

He didn’t respond, but Frisk felt his—their shoulders deflate. They just—couldn’t. They wanted to curl in on themselves. Wanted to vanish—wanted to—

But the faint warmth of Sans’ fragile hope wrapped around them instead. Broken, over and over. Clinging to life by a single mismatched thread. But it _was_ hope.

_Pap believed in you until the end, you know._

It was just a memory. Lost through time and space. One time-line of many. Just like this one will be.

_Do you think even the worst person can change?_

Blood and dust. Everything was blood and dust. They could taste it. Ashes and iron.

It made them sick.

Frisk always remembered.

Skeletal fingers dug into fabric, right above their pulsing soul. Was that them? Or him? They couldn’t tell. In the end did it matter?

“Keep your chin up, kiddo.” Sans’ voice was low. Hushed. Just a whisper in the cold night air. “I’m here.”

His determination was an ember next to the inferno Frisk was used to.

_I’m here._

_I’m here._

**_I’m here._ **

X-x-x

_Tag. You’re it!_

The door was glowing a faint cyan as forces from outside tried to force it open. I couldn’t help the giggle, retreating further in. Stone scraped against stone. The chill winter air blasting through the passageway, kicking up mother’s dust around me.

Patience was so predictable. Always waiting. Never acting.

So what if he’d changed from waiting in the Judgement Hall to outside the Ruins.

I still had the advantage.

I had the first move, and it was. Just. About. Time.

I’ve done this run so many times, I’d know the ruins blindfolded.

I had to get him right where I wanted.


	11. Chapter 11

 

“ _Catch me if you ca—an~”_

Sans gave the open door a resigned shrug, using the motion to detach the magical tethers he’d used to force open the heavy stone. Really? The demon child made him wait an entire extra day and a half, only to want to play _tag?_

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Running away? After sitting around and giggling at him all night? Granted, that had particularly effective. He hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night, knowing they were just _waiting_ on the other side of the stone and it could open at any moment.

_“SANS!”_

It made him flinch, but the memory of his brother’s shout had him glancing suspiciously behind him. The faint pressure behind his skull had him suspecting the memory hadn’t risen unbidden.

“Yeah, I got it, kid.” He muttered, picking at the scarred ridges on the side of his skull. Considering. Wondering how many of those little nudges had been the kid all along.

It was obviously a trap, just like Pap’s presence had been. Follow the kid’s own personal Mr. Hyde, get lost in an unfamiliar place, and then have them circle around him and leave. He’d be able to use a shortcut to get back out even if they blocked the entrance somehow, but if they made it out of the chokepoint he had set up at his station, he’d have to wait until the longer bridge before Snowdin, and by then the sentries might be dust. They’d have more LV by then. More HP. Just overall more bothersome.

_...blocked the entrance somehow._

He prodded at the thought as it was echoed back at him. And then grinned.

_Good idea kid._

He stepped a few yards down the darkened corridor, holding a hand out behind him. The giant skull filled the hall, its inner glow knifing through the gloom.

The beam of concentrated energy tore into the ceiling, dissolving weakening rock the longer he let it go. A few quick calculations, a few more seconds and then he cut it off abruptly.

Rock creaked and groaned. Splintering as the specific sections he’d targeted failed to hold up the ceiling.

It crashed down behind him. Blocking the path. Blocking the door.

If they wanted to play tag, fine. But there wouldn’t be an easy way out this time.

The glow from his eye lit the tunnel faintly. Just enough to see by. It was long. Straight. There was another door at the end. A door, half open, with flickering firelight behind it.

 _Torches_.

A memory whispered. He’d never been down here before.

There were indeed torches lining the walls. Flickering low in their sconces. Abandoned. Unchecked. He took another step through the door. Something caught on his slipper, dragged with the motion. Sans looked down.

A torn purple robe. A smeared, grey-white pile of dust, tinted faintly orange in the light from the fire..

Everything just stopped.

“Welcome home, partner.”

He turned his frozen grin on the dead-eyed child. Icy fingers curled around his soul. Squeezing. Grief. Dread.

“Why—”

It was his voice. But not his words. Another, smaller one echoed them. It bubbled up from the depths of their shared soul, hanging in the enclosed chamber.

“She was your _mother_.”

Lips curled into a knife-cut grin, dust smeared cheeks dimpled. “Don’t sound so shocked! It isn’t like this is the first time. What did you think happened?”

The familiar pressure was back, building exponentially with each passing moment. Sans began to feel lightheaded, the pressure pulsing and pounding—but he could still think. He could think _very_ clearly. Everything sharpened, focusing on a single point.

_“Oh! I didn’t know you could yodel!”_

A pleasant memory from what felt like lifetimes ago. Two voices, laughing in the cold night air. For hours.

_Knock Knock._

_Who’s there?_

And now there was silence.

Something must have shown on his face, because the demon suddenly moved, leaping backwards as a wave of bones exploded from their feet.

Logically. He’d known anyone beyond the door had been lost. They had too much LV.

Seeing the discarded and forgotten robe wrapped around his slipper—left where it had fallen like any other piece of meaningless litter. The carelessly scattered dust.

_A torn red scarf, buried and soon lost in the blowing snow._

Some things had stuck with him through the nightmares. Most ended up lost when everything rewound. But...

It never had felt real until they killed Papyrus either.

_I’m so—_

“Don’t.” He knew where that was going.

Just Don’t.

“Don’t what?” Behind that easy smile, they were tense. Weight forward. Ready to move at an instant.

“Not talkin’ to you.” He calculated the distance between the two walls. Magic sparked, and he _yanked_. Bone-shaped constructs erupted from either side. Crisscrossing. Piercing cloth and flesh because they didn’t have the time or space to move.

“ _Hehe.”_ A sharp hiss, but it barely did any damage. The ribbon glittered in the torchlight. They took the toy knife and drove it through the bones that dug into their shoulder, thigh and gut. They parted like butter, dissolving into tiny motes of magic, leaving tiny cuts and trickles of blood soaking into cloth. “Talking to yourself isn’t a good sign, you know.”

“Not like you can throw stones.” Tch. Still not enough karma for direct attacks. Guess he had to rely on environmental damage again.

They try to dash down the hall. _Ping_. He yanks them back sharply. They end up skidding across the rough stone floor, his magic sliding off their slippery soul—how the hell did they have a soul if _he_ had the kid’s?—but it lasted long enough for him to throw a series of blue attacks crisscrossing the hall. More bone erupted from the stone beneath them. They’d immediately rolled, bouncing to their feet just in time for—

**Ping.**

They flew up, toward the ceiling. Once gravity righted itself, they’d fall—

_Crunch._

But they got up again. Bruised and scuffed but still smiling. Damn humans were resilient. Probably didn’t help that the hallway wasn’t that tall.

_Tall enough for m—_

“You’ll never win.”

...that hit home.

“I dunno about that. By my count we’re dead even right now.”

The blaster seemed to take up half the hallway, but it did it’s job in absorbing the knife slashes as they sprang forward. Sans took a step away, summoning another series of bone attacks to drive the demon back. They danced around them easily despite the cramped space.

“One for one. A death for a death?” They giggled again, clinging to the blaster’s sloped skull, shadowed eyes peering through matted bangs at him. “Yet here we are again, and I have the advantage.”

The pressure was pulsing. It kept him on his feet. A sleepless night worrying. That little nagging feeling that maybe they were right. He was stuck. Maybe none of this would matter.

“Not from where I’m standin’ bud.” Sans tried to push it back. It was...easier than usual. Doubts and worries being smothered by that blanket of pressure. Focus on surviving now, eh? “You don’t really have much space to run in here.”

They dropped in a cloud of dust and magic as he dismissed the blaster, directly into a forest of conjured bone. Enough small nicks and slowly the damage would be done, he thought grimly as they tore through. He had trouble holding dense concentrations, but in this small space...well. It was far easier to pack them in close. They made it out just to swerve, avoiding a sudden wall of blue constructs. Sans pulled even more out from the top of the passage as they tried to leap over it. They collided with a spark of magic, being thrown back.

**_Ping_ **

The mottled soul flashed blue. Sans jerked his hand.

The blue magic slid away like water, barely tugging at the soul. Holding on just long enough to make them stumble.

They caught themselves against the wall, “See? Even with all my partner’s determination, you’ll never match mine _._ ”

The white and black-mess didn’t fade like it normally did. It tinged red, as if shining through a thick cloud.

“You are _stuck._ Stuck and you don’t even know it! What would happen if you killed me here anyway? _Mother is **dead.** _ Do you think _they_ could be satisfied with that? _”_

The toy knife shot out, slicing clean through the wall of bone. Sans _stepped._ Back. Down the hall. Back toward the door. Toward the torches and scorch marks and dust covered stones. He pulled up a series of crisscrossing bones—blue ones. They were sturdier—and they just barreled right through, tanking the damage even as their soul flashed with each point.

The knife glinted in the fire-light. The plastic edge bathed in red. Glimmering.

“You can’t save. You can’t reset. Never able to move forward. Never able to progress. Do you really want to be stuck with me _forever?_ Do you really think your will can outlast _mine?”_

Sans just snorted.

“That ain’t my decision alone, bud.” He tapped lightly on his skull, fingerbones going numb from the lingering stream of red magic staining off-white. He had barely even noticed when it started seeping. Not surprising, if it was caused by Determination. The Kid had a lot of it right now. “Kid might be a messed up bundle of guilt and regret, but they made me promise. No one else gets hurt. And given To—the old lady, you aren’t ready to turn over a new leaf yet.”

“...what if I did?”

Say _what_ now?

“What if _I_ made a promise?” Sans hadn’t thought that smile could get even _creepier._   “I could promise not to touch anyone. Not your brother. Not your friends. Azzy and I could cross the barrier, leaving the Underground trapped, but intact.”

Trapped. But alive. And this loop would end at last.

It was tempting. But Sans could guess what the cost would be. He snapped his finger, summoning a blaster between them. To hell with worrying about a cave-in.

“Nice offer, but no thanks. Kid doesn’t seem too thrilled with the idea.”

Shadowed eyes crinkled. “Pity.”

_Behind—_

Sans stepped.

Perspective tilted as he was suddenly meters down the hall. Green vines skewered the space he’d just been standing.

The...pile of dust was moving. Something was rising. Dust spilling off yellow petals in a steady stream. A nightmare cackled at him.

The blaster fired. The child ducked and rolled. The energy dug into stone, spinning wildly as it tried to follow the target, drilling a long line into the wall and ceiling before  Sans stepped again, dissolving the blaster with a sharp hand motion.

Vines lashed out. Curling around his arm, forcing him to step again.

And again.

And again.

The cramped nature of the corridor suddenly working against him as vines and bullets and knives lashed out at every turn. The soul in his ribcage was pulsing wildly. Erratic. Fear and worry as it produced  enough of that damn energy to leave him jittery and nearly missing a step as he summoned a blaster to absorb a flurry of bullets.

“How long would it take before their determination wavered, I wonder?”

Sans didn’t even have time to track the demon’s movements, his dim vision barely able to track the green and white and the cyan flare as he took step after step. Out of the corridor. Out into the slightly larger black room. A faintly lit spot of grass growing in the center. The door was blocked by a pile of rubble.

More vines sprung from the patch. Grasping and hungry. A stem and petals emerged, roots digging into rock, hanging from the ceiling. A twisted face. _He_ had LV. Sans realized with a start. The flower was dripping with it. Oily and disgusting and he could _hurt it._

A blaster shot disintegrated a wave of constructs. Another took a flurry of white pellets. A quick succession of bone attacks struck the flower’s small body as it moved to burrow back into the stone. The laughter shifted to angry cursing.

Hp began to tick down.

Too slow.

“Even if you win, we’d end up here again. _”_

The soul shuddered within his. Just slightly out of sync.

_Crack._

“Because they can’t just _let_ someone _die.”_

_Crack._

Maybe they were right.

Sans threw out his arms, a ring of blasters appearing at his call.

Vines curled around a small body protectively. Another set of sharpened thorns shot towards him.

In the end, did it matter if he survived? They’d just start back here again.

The Door Lady— _torielmom—_ could be—

If they could be faster next time. They could save her.

No. That thinking was dangerous. There was no guarantee. He had no idea what triggered each retry. If he just allowed himself to die—on the faint _hope_ that the kid was right, and that it would start over again—

Well. It could be the end.

A ring of simultaneous blasts nearly blinded him. The air was thick with dust and motes of loose magic. He felt more than saw a blaster shatter.

_Crack._

He moved to step. Aiming for safety. Magic flared. Resistance. Thorns tore free from the stone floor, thorns shearing through bone even as he made the necessary calculations.

He tripped.

Something punched through his chest. Still too late. Soul splintering. Whelp. Guess he had to hope the kid was right.

He drew on leaking magic. Shielding Bone. Blasting through vine and stone and—that was _Flowey screaming._

A faint mechanical hum.

Suddenly pressure. Forcing the splintering shards back together. In one moment he felt like he was in two places at once.

The dragon-skull scattered to dust.

**_*Reload failed._ **

X-x-x

 

“ _Not this time.”_

The treated glass hummed in my hands as I screwed the lid back on. It felt warm. Alive. Through it I could see the white soul continuing to crumble, the red cracks widening and attempting to fill in the spaces desperately. Even with the stabilizing effect of the soul container. Heh. Monster souls were so _weak._

I had to admit everything was _worth it_ to watch that smiling skeleton reduced to dust. I sucked in a breath, waiting for the _wonderful_ rush of strength and power of yet another monster down. _Especially_ **him.** The one I’d died to so many times. The thief. The one to _dare_ spirit away my partner.

But...it didn’t happen. It...held together somehow. Clinging to my partner’s determination like a leech. Enveloped in a thin red shell.

Pity. But there was plenty more opportunity to level up now. In a way, I was glad they hadn’t taken my deal. Sparing everyone would be _boring._

The comedian might have. But not my partner. Not with the old hag dead. There was a reason I’d dusted her so soon, and it wasn’t just scraping for every bit of EXP I could squeeze out of the ruins.

Insurance.

Rocks above us creaked.

“Uh, Chara, not to rush or anything—” I glanced up at the woven vines supporting the weakened ceiling, and then over at Azzy. He instinctively wilted, although the fear only took a moment to morph into pain from the multitude of tears in his leaves and petals. That last attack had even left a nasty burn.  I was  tempted to try checking him, but he’d be fine. I remembered that creeping pain, the one that lasted long after I’d been hit. A lingering shadow and weight. It couldn’t kill. Not alone. “I mean—golly, I can’t believe that _worked!”_

“It was all thanks to _you_ Azzy.” I gave him an indulgent smile, which led him to break out in pleased giggles.  Without him fetching the soul container, this might have turned out to be much more difficult. It was hilarious how tunnel-visioned the comedian could get, given it had been Azzy’s intervention each time that screwed him up. It made me wonder how much he _really_ knew, and how much was just guesswork.

“I told you I could be useful!” He preened. Winced again. “Why don’t you just take your soul back so we can save and get outta here?”

 _Your_ soul. It sounded...nice.

I hum and look down at upside-down heart floating inside the container, the bright red of my partner’s soul barely visible within the semi-opaque depths.

So close. In the core of my patchwork soul, the tiny red seed pulsed at the proximity.

So...close.

“Not yet.”

I can’t yet.

“Why not?”

I give him another _look_.

“What?” The flower didn’t back down like usual. Interesting. He tried to wave a leaf in emphasis, but abandoned the gesture when it pulled at his burn. “We worked so hard to get it back. What’s the point if you don’t take it?”

“Silly Azzy.” I giggle, splaying a hand against my chest.  “A human can’t just absorb a soul. If you paid attention to Mother’s History lectures you’d know that. Only monsters can.”

He was cute when he looked this grumpy, his oh so _friendly_ face morphing into something much more interesting than the facsimile he’d taken to using around her.

“Then WHAT was the POINT of all that? I could have burrowed us both out of here _ages ago._ I’ve been watching the idiot. He would have waited there unknowing while we massacred the underground!”

“Oh. I don’t know. Revenge?” I flipped the knife, lazily, wiping the dust off the blade with the slowly darkening sweater. I thought about detouring back to our old room, just to grab a clean shirt. Mom was _so_ sentimental. She probably still had some of my old clothes. “Regaining control of the timeline? Even if I can’t _take_ it...well...they can’t reload either. Not in there.”

And now...all we needed was time.

“Oh don’t you pout at me, Azzy. This is still their body. They just need to _choose_ to come back.”

He arches an eyebrow skeptically, “What if they don’t? The smiley trashbag said the little monarch agreed to no deal.”

My finger traces the shape of the soul on the glass. Warm and humming.

They will.

They left in order to stop a genocide run after all.

“Then we get to have a bit of fun. Aren’t you tired of these musty ol’ ruins yet, Azzy?”

The soul shuddered. Suspended in the glass.

I smiled.

They always had a choice.

Continue.

Or Reset.

And now, the only way to reset was through _me._

X-x-x

He stood in an expanse of yellow. Blurred blobs of color that shifted and flowed. He knew they were flowers. Not that he could feel them brushing against his shins, or feel the ground beneath him. Nothing really felt _real._ Even what passed for his own body was some jumbled mess of white, cyan, and the occasional smattering of other colors.

It was familiar enough. Was this what it looked like when he wasn’t dreaming?

Even the weight in his arms didn’t feel heavy at all. Just a shifting red blob that had something that could possibly be hands that were curled into a similarly indistinct blob that had probably once been his shirt.

_Whelp. I think we’re pretty screwed kiddo._

Beyond the edge of color was...nothing.

He could feel the thump of both their souls. Out of sync and grating against each other. The Kid’s fast, frantic, like a frightened rabbit. His, slower, stuttering, dragged along by the other’s desperation even as it wanted to stop completely.

He was kinda wishing the kid let it shatter.

 _Can’t say we didn’t try,_ He shrugged. _That deal’s lookin’ a bit better in hindsight._

The head against his chest shook.

_...no?_

_...kid?_

**_*DETERMINATION._ **

Sans sighed. He stared out into the void, wondering if it was staring back at him.

_...whatever you say kid._

Something shimmered in the blur of color. Black and Orange. The panels looked familiar. Like they were from a dream he barely remembered. They too were distorted nearly beyond recognition. He couldn’t read the labels.

Their soul pulsed faster. Erratic. Sans wondered if they were trying to tear it apart themselves.

_Black spider-webbing through red._

Hesitantly, he reached for the choice that felt right.

The formless mess of his hand passed right through it. It fritzed, like his old television during a particularly heavy storm. It slowly crumbled away.

That...pressure again. Not from within, like he’d come to recognize as the kid’s determination. But from without. Squeezing on them both. Forcing them together. Fighting...whatever the kid was trying to do.

Their strange two-toned soul reluctantly settled back into its asynchronous beat. Sans sank to the ‘ground.’ Still holding the red blur in the crook of one arm. He hadn’t even considered letting go. They were the only thing remotely solid left.

**_*Reload failed._ **

He was tired.

x-x-x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to ask questions if you want or need to!
> 
> Now you know why Flowey was sneaking into the lab ;3


	12. Chapter 12

Papyrus nearly vibrated as the phone rang, thrumming his gloved fingers against his hip while he waited. The darkened crystals above the skeletal trees were slowly brightening, counting down the minutes to full dayglow. He could hear the low, rumbling chatter from the dogs to his left as they conversed in that odd sublanguage of barks and growls they all shared to one degree or another. Couldn’t understand a word of it, but at least it was distracting from the ringing and ringing and ringing.

And then it clicked over to voice mail. Papyrus sighed and hit the end call button. He left a message the first six times he’d called. Even _he_ got to a point where there really wasn’t any more words to say.

One of the cloaked dogs--he squinted into the shadows of the hood. Dog--amy? Yes. Yes. Papyrus could see the extra tuft of a mustache now. Of _course_ it was Dogamy. He had to _know_ the sentries impeccably if he was to take over the unit. Someday. Whenever Undyne said he could join.

It never even occurred to him that it was unlikely for a rookie to be immediately promoted to unit leader. The dogs pretty much followed his lead anyway. They responded well to confidence. He had that in spades.

“Still no word from the Captain?”

“SADLY, EVEN MY VALIANT EFFORTS HAVEN’T MANAGED TO BEAR ANY FRUITS.”

He was on his 20th try by now. Giving his phone one last disappointed look, Papyrus stowed it away for the moment. Papyrus would have strong words with it later. It wasn’t really its fault if Undyne didn’t answer...but they all had their jobs. He couldn’t give it too much slack. And this was important work. “ANY DEVELOPMENTS?”

Papyrus and Dogamy turned nearly at the same time, facing the pile of rubble spilling out from the cavern wall and onto the path.

Cave in. Somehow.

It just wasn’t _natural._ It hadn’t even happened too long ago either. Papyrus distinctly remembered cheerfully going through his pre-dayglow jog around the town when he’d heard the sharp blast echo through the cavern. Faint. But _sharp._

The rest of the sentries had to have heard it too. They’d stationed Greater Dog near the bridge to town just in case, and Papyrus had met everyone else at Sans’ station. Since that was the closest to the site.

But.

Papyrus thought back to the half-filled footprints. Thought back to the last few days. The empty station. The snow covered lump pacing in front of the door, while Papyrus stood silently on the bridge and just...watched.

Sans had been acting strange.

And now he was _missing from his post._

Papyrus wanted to be annoyed. He’d lectured Sans so many times. He should be furious. Instead he was just…

Worried.

Very. Worried.

“Nuzzlemuff!” A second hooded head shot up, the black curve of cloth deforming as floppy ears tried to perk. “Anything?”

(I’m sorry snugglebug.) The two briefly touched noses. (There isn’t anything newer than skel-smell, and even that is fading under snow-smell. Magic-smell lingers, but it’s dispersed too much. I can’t give it a color rating. I sent Lesser and Doggo to check the woods, but we all know this was the only door.)

Dogeressa’s accent was thicker but Papyrus could still understand it well enough.

“MY BROTHER…” A dragon-skull flashed through his mind. But he shooed the thought away. “PROBABLY SAW THE PERPETRATOR AND GAVE CHASE. LIKE A SENTRY _SHOULD_. NYEH HEH.”

His nervous laughter wasn’t fooling anyone.

(Skel-smell is strongest near the debris.) Dogeressa exchanged glances with her husband, who shook his head slowly, (But it’s too old to tell properly. Could have checked and left. Could have gone in. Could have been…)

She trailed off uncomfortably.

_Could have been crushed._

Monsters turned to dust. Dust could be easily lost in the ocean of snow. Papyrus staunchly refused to even _consider_ that. Sans was too cowardly to go _into_ danger. He’d probably just…

Just.

Come find him.

And Papyrus hadn’t _been_ at home. It was all just a weird just-missing-each-other-coincidence.

Yes.

That was it.

“IF WE CAN’T GET HER ON THE PHONE, I’LL GO TO WATERFALL TO GET UNDYNE MYSELF.” He declared suddenly. “THIS IS UNUSUAL. AND UNUSUAL THINGS NEED TO BE REPORTED. WE ARE LUCKY THE CAVE IN DIDN’T OCCUR NEAR ANY OCCUPIED AREAS. YOU TWO REMAIN HERE AND KEEP WATCH. WHEN LESSER DOG RETURNS SEND HER TO RELIEVE GREATER DOG. WE COULD USE HIS HELP CLEARING THE RUBBLE. EVEN IF NO ONE LIVES THERE ANYMORE, THERE MAY BE A CLUE TO THE CAUSE. CAVE INS CAN BE _DANGEROUS._ ”

He paused his flailing, the hand that had once been expressively suddenly cutting through the air. “AND GIVE THAT LAZY BROTHER OF MINE A DRESSING DOWN WHEN HE SHOWS UP (WHICH HE WILL.) I’VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF HIS BOONDOGGLING. THINGS LIKE THIS IS WHY WE HAVE SENTRIES!”

Both dogs glanced at each other before giving an affirmative woof. Papyrus let out his signature confident laugh and, spun on his heel. Speed away down the path. If the River Person happened to be at the dock the trip would be quick, and _maybe_ he could see if Wolfy was willing to help with the rubble clearing. The burly grey wolf was diligent about sending the ice cubes down the river to who-knows-where, but surely he would be willing to take the time to help them out?

 _This isn’t funny, brother._ Papyrus found his thoughts drifting as his long strides ate up the familiar snow covered landscape. He knew the route from his station--just the area beyond Sans’--back to town like the back of his glove. Unfortunately, that meant his mind had the chance to wander, especially as he passed the abandoned snow-covered cart near the snow decahedron. The Nice Cream man was still on vacation? Must be.

Sans _always_ managed to find him before. No matter where Papyrus was. It had been infuriating at times. Especially when he just popped up behind Papyrus with barely even a sound, doing his best to scare his poor brother out of his _bones._

Papyrus had gotten used to picking up that faint _fwip_ that echoed whenever his brother messed with space and time. His nerves had needed it.

Maybe--Maybe Papyrus had been right. Maybe Sans _had_ followed whoever--or whatever--caused the cave-in. Maybe he was being sneaky and out of sight and watching like a good sentry should, and would soon report back to him that it had all been an accident…

Wait. There was something yellow within the white, peeking around one of Greater Dog’s beloved snowpoffs. Papyrus couldn’t _help_ but be pleased when he recognized the figure.

“Howdy Papyrus!”

“WOWIE! IT’S BEEN--OH MY GOD YOU STAY RIGHT THERE!”

Flowey’s mouth--which had been open ready to say something--suddenly snapped shut in confusion as Papyrus barreled toward him, leaving the packed snow path he’d been following and cutting a swathe of footprints into mostly unbroken snow. The flower tried to flinch away, but Papyrus snapped another commanding “DON’T MOVE!”

It vanished into the snow just before Papyrus got there, popping up a good three strides away.

“Golly Papyrus, what’s gotten into you?”

“I SAID NOT TO MOVE! YOU’RE HURT!”

Petals torn. Even that familiar smile seemed pained. There was even a large ugly burn across the flower’s tiny stem, traveling onto his right leaf which was a wilted shriveled mess of its normal green springliness.

Flowey glancing down at the damage as if he was honestly surprised.

“Oh. This? It’s nothing. I was just wondering why you were running _away_ is all. I heard such a commotion near the ruins this morning, can you believe it? I even heard it could be a hum--what are you doing?!”

Flowey’s face seemed to shift as Papyrus knelt down in the snow, into an expression Papyrus couldn’t recall ever crossing his friend’s face before. He curled back defensively. Papyrus held his hands out. Palms up. His red glove ringed in flickering green magic.

“IT’S JUST HEALING MAGIC.”

“I. Said. It. Was. Nothing.” Papyrus had never...seen his friend’s face so...warped before. It only made him more worried.

How much pain did he have to be in for Flowey to snap at _him?_

“PLEASE?” If this had been his brother, Papyrus would have just reached out and used his size to his advantage, ignoring the protests. But something about Flowey’s posture...he had the feeling it wouldn’t go over well. “I CAN’T JUST LEAVE MY FRIEND HURTING.”

Sharp angular fangs faded, but...the smile didn’t return. Lips pursed into single flat line.

“If I let you, will you shut up and let me talk?”

“OF COURSE! I’D NEED THE UTMOST CONCENTRATION TO MAKE SURE YOU GET THE CARE YOU DESERVE! I AM VERY GREAT--”

He clamped his jaw shut at Flowey’s glower, miming a zipping motion as the flower gingerly tried to unfurl the charred leaf. It was the most obvious and worst of the damage. Papyrus nursed that spark of green, putting aside for the moment his troubled thoughts of his brother, about Undyne’s silence, of the missing teens, and just focused on this one thing. Helping his friend.

His friend who watched him silently for the first pass, despite having said he wanted to talk. Whose face Papyrus couldn’t read for the life of him.

The leaf flinched back at first, but slowly uncurled again. A little further each time. Papyrus coaxed it closer to health. Away from the bad stuff. Foreign magic had ravaged the monster’s structure, and--Papyrus was scandalized to see it was _still_ eating away at the limb. No. NO. That just wouldn’t _do!_ He’d never _seen_ anything like this before. Lingering magic. Over an hour old at _least_ \--but persistent. Magic just didn’t _last_ that long. Papyrus was _steamed._ Someone had been picking on his friend--!

Flowey yanked his leaf free, curling and uncurling the still slightly blackened limb. Papyrus had attacked the lingering magic with gusto, but there was still superficial damage. “I CAN DO MORE--”

“It’s...fine. Really.” There was an odd tone in his voice, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“BUT--”

“Nu-uh.” The flower bobbed, drawing Papyrus’ attention to his torn petals. Papyrus itched to try and heal those too, “Our deal was I get to talk. Wasn’t it?”

...dang it. Papyrus crossed his arms irritably but didn’t say anything. He was the GREAT Papyrus after all. His word was GOLDEN. As GOLDEN as Flowey’s petals. Although they were really more of a butter yellow right now, faded out a bit. Probably because his HP was so low. Why _hadn’t_ he eaten something!?

“Okay. Now I’ll ask a few questions. First--since when could you _heal?_ You’re supposed to _tell_ me these things you oaf!”

Papyrus puffed up his chest, his jaw rattling with the speed which he responded, “IT’S ONLY BEEN A FEW WEEKS! MS BUNNY DIDN’T THINK I COULD BUT I’VE MANAGED SMALL THINGS AND HAD TO HEAL UP MY BONEHEAD OF A BROTHER A TIME OR TWO AND I JUST LIKE BEING ABLE TO HELP--FLOWEY! PROMISE ME. IF SOMEONE’S PICKING ON YOU MAKE SURE TO TELL THE GREAT PAPYRUS ABOUT IT! I CAN’T STAND BULLIES. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE BULLYING MY FRIENDS!”

That expression shift again. But soon Flowey was scowling at him, “I can take care of MYSELF moron. The idiot who did this got what was coming to him.”

“I HOPE YOU GAVE THEM A GOOD TALKING TO!” Papyrus nodded fervently, blithely ignoring the insult. Flowey only _thought_ he came off at sickeningly cheerful. Papyrus had known his friend long enough to recognize the edge to his personality. He knew he didn’t mean anything by it. After all, aside from his brother, Flowey had been his oldest friend. He wouldn’t keep coming back if he didn’t actually _like Papyrus_ right?

“ANYWAY.” The flower sucked in a breath. And then paused. He almost seemed to...wilt. “W-Where were you going? I saw all the other guards heading back that way.”

“OH I JUST NEED TO HEAD TO WATERFALL TO FIND THE CAPTAIN! SHE ISN’T PICKING UP HER PHONE, AND SINCE WE DON’T KNOW IF THE CAVE IN--THERE WAS A CAVE IN IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW!--WAS CAUSED BY SOMEONE OR IF IT WAS NATURAL--ANYWAY, THE GUARD NEEDS TO LOOK INTO IT! PLUS I NEED TO DELIVER MY REPORT ON THE MISSING TEEN AND SEE IF SHE HAS ANY ADVICE--”

“...waterfall...huh?” Papyrus barely registered the mutter before the flower perked up, “Oh boy, you’re in luck friend! I happened to have just _come_ from waterfall. The river person’s boat is out of order today, so you’ll need to go the loooong way. You could try the boat, but I saw someone wait for hoooours earlier today. They were still there last I saw.”

The boat was out of order!? Papyrus sprang to his feet, “OH NO THAT ADDS ANOTHER FOUR HOURS TO MY TRIP! THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME KNOW! I’M SORRY FLOWEY BUT I REALLY SHOULD GET GOING! I GOTTA FIND UNDYNE AND TELL HER--!”

“Don’t let me stop you.” The flower purred, “If it was _that_ important I’m surprised you made time for little ol’ me!”

“OF COURSE I’D STOP FOR YOU! THE GREAT PAPYRUS NEVER PASSES BY A MONSTER IN NEED! _ESPECIALLY_ A FRIEND! IF YOU WANT TO STOP BY THE HOUSE LATER I’LL TRY TO HEAL THE REST OF IT--AS WELL AS MAKE SURE YOU GET A DELICIOUSLY NUTRITIOUS MEAL--BUT I REALLY SHOULD BE GOING NOW! FAREWELL FRIEND!”

Papyrus zoomed off. He had no time to waste.

x-x-x

Flowey...lingered. Watching him go. He glanced down at his slightly blackened leaf, reflexively curling at the remembered pain. At the parting gift the smiley trashbag had left him. At the pain that had lingered and nibbled away at his HP, the pain he’d done his best to hide from Chara even as he’d tunneled them both out of the ruins.

And now it was gone. Healed by an overbearing buffoon of a skeleton who couldn’t leave well enough alone.

The irony was delicious.

In another timeline, Flowey might have been in the mood to relish it.

... _friend huh…_

Chara wasn’t going to be happy.

What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. It’s not like the moron wouldn’t run right onto Chara’s knife eventually. He always did.

Flowey just...didn’t feel like being the one to lead him there. Not right now. Not after that.

He was a soulless husk of a dead monster. He didn’t care about ANYONE. He didn’t NEED anyone. Except Chara of course.

But...Papyrus had always been...interesting.

He burrowed back into the snow, the quiet simplicity of the rocky ground a comfort after that utterly baffling exchange. Finding the other dogs would at least appease Chara for a little while. They’d been happily dealing with the Dogi when they’d sent Flowey ahead to round up the rest.

...with Papyrus gone on an extended goosechase, and the smiley trashbag and nerd out of the picture…

This would be interesting.

X-x-x

One, two.

A pool of shredded black cloth.

Three.

A discarded shield.

Four.

A pink tank. Two shiny knives glinting in the snow.

And finally...Five.

I crushed the metal gauntlet beneath my foot. The magic forged armor crumbling along with its owner.

How kind of them all to line up for me, coming in one by one as _someone_ helpfully pointed them to the lone, oh so scary human. Oh look at what they _did_ to this _poor_ meek flower. Oh no, you should _hurry._ Don’t worry I’ll go warn the others...

_Good job Azzy._

I wiped the dust off the toy knife, smearing it on the increasingly torn sweater. I’d been eyeing the discarded robes for a while now. Neither were in the best of shape. I kicked my way through the piles of dust and discarded weaponry, fishing through the remains for the most intact, although both were riddled with slash wounds. Whose had it been? I couldn’t tell those two dogs apart without checking, and if I couldn’t reach the save file, of course I couldn’t quite reach the battle menu either.

Not that it really mattered now. Dust was mixed with dust with snow, the serene togetherness of nothingness. They’d died together at least. And I was cold.

It would be a pity to let it go to waste.

The cloak was a bit _too_ big. But that was easily solved. I stowed the plastic knife away carefully, picking through the piles of dust until I found the pair of long dual knives. I admired them for a moment, examining my dust-covered face in the reflection--knives-- _real knives--_ nearly the length of my entire arm. Too long. Too unwieldy for me to use unfortunately, but perfect for cutting cloth.

It took a few minutes, a tangle of black cloth, and awkward knife placement, but eventually I had a much closer to child-size robe. It ended up jagged where I’d just taken the knife’s edge to it with careless abandon, and it was fraying. I shrugged it on, the end stopping just below my knees. Still too large in the shoulder for me. But I was warm. That was all that mattered.

“Looking goood Chara.”

Oh goodie. Azzy was back. I giggled and did a little spin, showing off my makeshift wardrobe change for him. “I had to look good for our boss battle! Papyrus should be on his way right?”

I glanced at the soul container half-buried in the snow as I said that, wondering if I’d get a reaction.

Nothing. The flipped heart just floated docile in the center of the glass. A shine from within pulsed slowly, occasionally highlighting the cracks in the monster soul despite the opaque shell covering it.

My partner just needed to let him die. He was useless. They both were. Didn’t they see the only path was through me?

“About that...Chara…”

Oh. I didn’t like how this was starting.

“It’s a really simple question, Azzy.” I crossed my arms. Giving him The Look. “Is Papyrus coming or not?”

The flower flinched. Leaves and petals curling before he puffed them out again, “I swear I checked all over town, Chara. There’s no sign of the moron anywhere. This stupid bear monster said they saw him running off to Waterfall with one of the local kids. Instead of chasing him down I decided to round up the mangy mutts for you. He’ll come running back as soon as word gets out anyway. You know how he is...eh heh...”

Instead of feeling angry, I felt...intrigued.

That...was different.

“How was the town?”

The flower looked lost for a moment, and then brightened significantly. His hesitant face morphing into a wide smile. “Compleeeeetely oblivious! They were a bit concerned about whatever the Smiley Trashbag did this morning, but there was no mention of a human _at all._ No evacuation. _Nothing._ It’s just as warm. And lively. And defenseless as _any_ pacifist run. I _told_ you taking out the nerd was a good idea! Without her camera system no one _knows._ Just _think_ about it Chara! A genocide run where _no one knows you are coming.”_

 _Something_ **new**.

...I had always wondered how Grillby would fight.

I leave Azzy cackling and cross to where I’d planted the soul container, scattering dust and snow alike. I kneel before it, pleased to see the soul flicker at my approach. I hold it up, the light from the cavern’s crystals shining down through the metal and glass and soul that sat in my hands

I smile at it.

“Make sure you watch closely, both of you.” The words came out with a satisfied purr. “Remember, you can stop it at any time. You know the cost.”

_Crack._

I giggle, pleased at that visible defect in my partner’s raw determination, even as the soul container immediately worked to counteract the damage.

Azzy popped up at my side, snow spilling from his tattered petals, “How aware do you think they are?”

I watch the soul dim, before holding my free arm out for Azzy. Vines spring from the ground, slithering up my robe-covered arm as the flower made himself comfortable on my shoulder. The vines loop and curl, forming a sling to gently cradle the soul container for transport.

“Aware enough.”

My now free hands go to my toy knife. Humming a lullaby mother used to sing to us Once Upon a Time.

I wonder if my partner would recognize it. I remember Toriel humming the melody to them in the ending they threw away.

“Did... _you_ remember anything Chara? Before you finally stole the soul?”

I laugh.

“I never stole it Azzy.” I kept my eyes forward, on the path ahead. A trail I knew like the back of my hand, but a trail towards a new run. _Finally._ I had been getting so tired of being _stuck._ “I--woke up when they fell. But I didn’t really...exist as _me_.”

Why was I talking about this? It didn’t matter now. After so many runs circumstances were changing. Once I’d been nothing more than a disembodied spirit, tagging along with a confused child doing nothing more than whispering the occasional comment into their ear. Blending with their thoughts so seamlessly even I hadn’t been sure I was anything separate.

“Not until they _needed_ me…”

I still remember that moment. Trapped between two buttons.

Continue?

Or Reset.

They’d made it as far as Snowdin.

They’d broken down crying in Papyrus’ arms.

They’d...never wanted to hurt anyone. But they had to try. They had hoped to learn something. Anything to help the one they’d never been able to fully save.

 _I could do it._ I’d realized in that moment. _ME._ Chara.

Not. Frisk.

I hadn’t really cared one way or another. I just wanted to move forward. That had been all I’d ever wanted.

_Chara you have to stay determined!_

They took the deal.

I fought.

They died.

And I found _purpose._ And I refused to give that up now.

“...Why didn’t you tell me sooner Chara? This world has been boring without you.”

Azzy rested his head against mine. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t tell him to move. I shrugged instead.

I couldn’t take declarations like that seriously. Not after seeing how easy it was for him to replace me.

Not that _Flowey_ remembered. Not that he remembered how _desperate_ he was to keep my partner around. Calling them by _my_ name. Giving up on our dream to destroy humanity, just to keep one little brat playing this game forever.

True Resets were wonderful things.

Now? He was...useful. As long as he stayed that way, I didn’t mind indulging him.

The only thing that mattered was that I was moving forward at last.

X-x-x Bonus thing x-x-X

“Oh my god it’s Undyne’s house I can’t believe I’m finally seeing it--”

“CAREFUL THERE SMALL LIZARD CHILD!” Papyrus plucked the tiny dragon off the ground by the back of his striped shirt. The kid wriggled excitedly, and Papyrus couldn’t help but be enthused by the child’s obvious energy. One day, when he was (even more) of a great and powerful guards person, would _he_ have fans this excited to see him? “I APPRECIATE YOU SHOWING ME THIS SHORTCUT--ALTHOUGH I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE JUMPING FROM A BRIDGE INTO THE DUMP WAS THE WISEST OR SHORTEST OF DECISIONS--BUT THIS IS ROYAL GUARD BUSINESS NOW! IT MAY BE BEST FOR YOU TO WAIT OVER BY  THE MILDLY FRUSTRATED DUMMY OVER THERE--”

“MILDLY FRUSTRATED?!” The aforementioned dummy--who appeared to be rudely eavesdropping on their conversation--hopped up and down wildly, “TRY UTTERLY INFURIATED! YOU TRY HAVING YOUR COUSIN EVICTED FROM HIS HOME, ANOTHER COUSIN NEARLY BEATEN TO GHOSTLY DEATH WITH A STICK AND SEE IF YOU END UP _MILDLY FRUSTRATED.”_

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS ADMITS YOU MIGHT HAVE A REASON TO BE IRATE, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD BE RUDE!” Papyrus put his hand on his hip, wagging his other hand reproachfully in the dummy’s direction. Of course said hand was already holding the lizard child, but luckily the kid seemed  to find the entire situation quite enjoyable, kicking his feet and grinning as he swayed like a pendulum.

“I’LL BE RUDE IF I DAMN WELL WANT TO YOU WALKING STACK OF TWIGS!” Steam appeared to be rising from the dummy’s ears. Did dummies even have ears? Papyrus didn’t _think_ so, but they also normally didn’t hop or yell obscenities at passerbys either. “ON TOP OF ALL THAT THE FISH LADY HASN’T BEEN BY IN OVER A DAY SO I HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN _PAID_ FOR MY TROUBLE! _”_

The monster child gasped, “Yo! That ain’t cool! Undyne isn’t here!?”

“I JUST SAID THAT--”

“OH DEAR! THAT MEANS OUR SEARCH ISN’T OVER! RATHER PEEVED TRAINING IMPLEMENT! DID YOU HAPPEN TO SEE WHICH WAY SHE WENT?”

“EVEN IF I KNEW I WOULDN’T TELL YOU--”

“Oh! I know dude!” The dragon child wriggled excitedly, Papyrus pulled him closer so he could hear the small one’s voice over the dummy’s angry obscenities, “I know _everything_ about Undyne, yo! Mom says it's an unhealthy case of hero worship, but I _knew_ it would come in handy some day! I’ve _heard_ when she isn’t on patrol or training she hangs out with my cousin in Hotland sometimes!”

Papyrus blinked.

“HOTLAND? SHE--VERY LOUDLY--SEEMS TO HATE IT THERE!”

“I know right? It’s weird yo.” The kid’s head bobbed enthusiastically, “But it’s true! I haven’t seen Alphys since she visited Snowdin for some party, but she showed up to say hi to my parents since she was in town and UNDYNE WAS WITH HER! It was awesome! I wanted to show her some of my moves--to impress her ya know?--but I was too excited and tripped over my tail! Talk about embarrassing yo.”

“NOT TO WORRY SMALL LIZARD CHILD! IF YOU KEEP THAT ENTHUSIASM SURELY UNDYNE WILL SEE YOUR POTENTIAL!”

“Really!?”

“OF COURSE! THE GREAT PAPYRUS SAYS SO! SHE TRAINS ME PERSONALLY YOU KNOW.” Papyrus puffed out his chest proudly, “BOTH IN BATTLE AND IN CULINARY MASTERY.”

“That’s AWESOME!” There were stars in his eyes. “You know, you are a pretty cool dude yourself, yo.”

“INDEED! I AM THE COOLEST OF ALL SOON TO BE GUARDSMEN.” He swung the dragon up to his shoulder, “NOW SMALL LIZARD CHILD, KINDLY POINT THE WAY TOWARD YOUR COUSIN’S ABODE!”

“Uuuuuuh--I’ve never been that far _myself--_ my parents don’t even like me sneaking out to waterfall--” the kid’s tail immediately wrapped around his modified MTT brand fashion spheres to steady himself, “but I _think_ if you follow the path east we’ll end up in Hotland eventually! My parents say it’s hard to miss Alphys’ place. It’s huge and square and right by the river landing.”

“VERY WELL! ONWARD TO HOTLAND!”

“Yeah! Roadtrips are awesome!”

They left the still rather irate dummy behind without another thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a bonus scene there! It wasn’t intended to be in the story (since I could have easily started with them arriving in hotland) but it was fun to write so I figured I’d include it since it doesn’t mess up the pacing too much. Obviously since our heroes are stuck in a jar right now, we’ll be seeing more of the rest of the cast for a while.


	13. Chapter 13

**A Tale of Consequences**

**Reset?**

x-x-x

Chapter 13

x-x-x

****

Icon is by the lovely [Shikoire](http://shikoireart.tumblr.com/) 

 

Something shifted. Sans didn’t so much open his eyes—he wasn’t sure he actually had any—but he did start paying attention again. Same dark void. Same riot of color—

Wait.

He pushed himself up, out of what _had_ been a patch of indistinct flowers. Yellow was still there, prominent against the black back drop, but instead of a smattering of green to hint at leaves and stems, the blooms now seemed to be floating. Almost like the bridge flowers in waterfall. Floating on—

Sans raised a hand, eyeing the red liquid looking substance clinging to the white fingers. He shook them to try and flick it off, but it clung stubbornly. Sinking into white and tinting it the slightest bit pink.

He couldn’t _feel_ it, not really. But he knew it would be sticky. He knew it would be viscous. His mind _tried_ to fill in the details, but it just ended up the same fake there but not there feeling.

 _“You might want to lay off the determination kiddo, you’re kinda flooding the place.”_ He wasn’t sure exactly where they were. The kid would be the same shade of red as...nearly everything at this point. He wasn’t sure if it _mattered._ Since he was still _here_ , the kid hadn’t let the rest of his soul crumble away into oblivion. That meant they had to be here _somewhere._

Not going to lie, he’d been kinda hoping for the oblivion part.

**“ _No.”_**

Their soul pulsed violently. It shivered through his—not body. Form? Manifestation?

Hell if he could find the right word. This entire place was probably just a representation his mind created in order to handle the sheer fact that he didn’t _exist_ anymore. Physically anyway. As a soul...well...that was debatable on whether you considered existence as being suspended in limbo while half your soul tried to dust itself, and the other just wanted to be done with all of this.

“ _It won’t work, kid.”_ Sans drew his knees up to his chest, two islands of white now breaking the red sea. The motion disturbed a few of the flowers, sending them spinning, skimming the surface. The two indistinct orange and black labels shimmered in the edge of his vision. He didn’t reach for either one. He’d just get another error message. “ _I told you. Those things have been keepings the souls together for **decades**. All this effort and energy is going to **waste.”**_

Probably even longer than that. He remembered seeing the cool inviting glow of the cyan soul the few times he’d been allowed in his father’s workshop as a kid. So they’d be even older than—

_His father._

Everything stuttered to a stop.

He was just waiting for it. For the static. But the void was only silent.

He wasn’t really allowed to speculate on what that could mean, because oily hands reaching out, tugging at his—their souls.

And then, they were elsewhere.

Snow. blinding snow.

Loose feathers surrounded them. An icy blue dissolving to dust. Giggles. It was that damn flower again.

And then it was gone again. Leaving him chilled to the bone. The kid’s grief hung over their weird little water garden like a fog.

“ _...recognized it?”_

He wasn’t sure how he knew, but the kid nodded. “... _snowy”_

...Of course. After the sentries, it would likely be the teens.

He didn’t have time to worry about Ga—him right now.

“ _I—have to stop it sans. Somehow—if I can stay determined—”_

_But it refused._

_Standing firm in the face of despair, even as their HP ticked down into the decimals—_

**_Why won’t you just let me WIN_ **

That definitely wasn’t his memory.

Shards pulling back together against the force of another’s will. Small body pushing forward, reaching for the spark of _good_ buried deep within those stolen souls—

 _“Kid—That worked as a human because you had a_ **body.** _You could still do what you needed to._ _What good is keeping our soul together when we can’t do **anything** with it?_ ” He waved an arm to indicate the mess of color and void. “ ** _This_** _is all we have.”_

It was a simple solution really.

And he knew they didn’t like it.

“ _...I can’t...just give **up** like that…”_

 _“I don’t like it either kiddo. But what can we do? All this determination is just...water without a way to use it.”_ Just ripples in the pond. Sans waved his hand through the faded buttons, knowing they’d scatter into nothingness the moment he came close. “ _We’re a little low on options.”_

***Reload failed.**

He’d already known. Trying again and again wasn’t going to change that.

He looked up to find the kid standing just a ways away. They were a blotch of red amongst red, yellow and black, but even so, they seemed more _defined_ than anything else. The pulse of their soul increased in volume, a constant hum slightly off beat from his own.

“ _sans…I **can’t.** If I go—you—”_

They didn’t need to say it. The knowledge yawned between them like a pit.

“ _The important thing is not letting everyone else end up that way. I’d probably be just fine after a reset anyway.”_

He could feel the lie in the words. Just as he _knew_ the kid wasn’t buying it. They could probably feel the cracks in his soul better than he could.

If they drained this weird water-garden, would they find a bed of broken glass? A mess of shards haphazardly fused together through sheer will?

“ _...do you really think they’d stop?”_

Sans didn’t say anything. He wasn’t used to them actually _answering_. He couldn’t see their face. But he didn’t need to.

“ _...i-if I go… they **will** win. There’d be no one to— I-if we let them have their ending…”_

_This is **my** story now._

_“...what then?”_

_“Hope a true reset fixes things?”_

_“Hope they even let me reset?”_

_“Hope they let us keep it?”_

“ _...sounds familiar. Doesn’t it?”_ He hadn’t meant to say that. The pain that shot through his—their soul was proof enough that it hit the mark. Sans sighed. “ _Sorry, I’m just being a pessimistic bag of bones.”_

And what did his opinion matter anyway? His dust had already been scattered back in the ruins.

_“...sans…”_

The kid took a step forward. He shrugged and turned away.

“... _I won’t leave you behind either.”_ They hesitated, and then nodded firmly. “ _I promise.”_

Heh.

_I THINK THEY JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO ALONE._

_“Ok kid. I get it.”_ They shared the same broken soul. He could _feel_ their conviction. They knew how he felt about promises. And he knew how they were about the saving people thing. Man. They were both such a mess. “ _Just do me a favor and lay off the reload thing for now. We’ll figure something else out. We just need to get out of this jar, yeah? Then you can probably do your thing and flip us back to the beginning.”_

How exactly, he didn’t know. His pessimism nagged at him, but he _tried_ to relegate it to the furthest corner of his mind.

“ _You know, I think this is the first time we’ve **properly** talked since becoming—uh—roommates.” _ He held out a hand, “ _I’m Sans. Sans the Skeleton.”_

Their embarrassment was almost tangible. A small hand shyly settled in his. “ _Frisk.”_

Frisk, huh.

_“I dunno. I kinda like kiddo.”_

X-x-x

“WOOOOWIE. HOTLAND IS SO...DIFFERENT!” Papyrus’ head swiveled back and forth. Back the way they came was cool and dark and blue. The path onward was a bright orange and so _hot_ Papyrus could almost feel his pores weeping—and he didn’t even _have_ pores! He could almost literally see where the rock itself changed shade! “NOT EVEN SNOWDIN TO WATERFALL IS SO—SO—EXTREME!”

“DUDE!” The dragon child bounced on his shoulder, “ _I’ve_ never been to Hotland but I’m just a kid! I figured someone as cool as you _had_ to have been all OVER the place!”

Papyrus spared a moment to just bask in the sparkle of _someone else_ finally _seeing_ how utterly amazing he was, before he raised a gloved hand with a violent flourish.

“OF COURSE THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS BEEN TO HOTLAND BEFORE. I SHALL HAVE YOU KNOW I’VE TRAVELED FAR AND WIDE TO MASTER THE INTRICATE AND COMPLICATED ART OF PUZZLE CRAFTING!” Papyrus huffed, “BUT I NORMALLY TAKE THE RIVERBOAT WHEN COMING THIS FAR.  I’VE NEVER WALKED THE ENTIRE WAY. THE ATMOSPHERE CHANGE IS MUCH MORE STRIKING IN PERSON!”

“Oh dude—that’s so totally AWESOME. You must have been EVERYWHERE!” The kid didn’t so much as missing a beat, “I can’t _count_ the number of times I’ve tried to take the riverboat to try and see Undyne train! The river person refuses to stop for any of the kids in Snowdin since my parents caught me skipping school. I think they yelled at them. It just ain’t fair yo.”

“YOUR PARENTS ARE ONLY LOOKING OUT FOR YOU, SMALL LIZARD.” Papyrus nodded, deciding that he’d taken sufficient time to admire the marvelous phenomenon. He took a step and started moving again, noting how easily the child adjusted his balance to Papyrus’ long strides despite not having any hands. Or arms for that matter. He definitely had quite the sense of balance! “YOUR GENERAL EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT FOR A YOUNG MONSTER! YOU MUST GIVE IT YOUR ALL! WHETHER YOU BECOME A GUARD OR A BRILLIANT SPAGHETTIORE, A GOOD FOUNDATION IN MAGIC IS ESSENTIAL, AND THE BEST WAY TO LEARN THE BASICS IS FROM A TEACHER!”

“I guueeeeess…” Papyrus paused to give the kid a look. He definitely suddenly looked sullen. That just wouldn’t do.

“WHAT IS THE MATTER?”

“I—just never really _got_ school y’know?” The little monster shifted uncomfortably, and then suddenly brightened, “YO! Check out that AWESOME armor over there! They GOTTA be in the guard. HEY! When you get into the guard d’ya think YOU’D get armor like that?! Not that your armor isn’t cool, but just _imagine_ totally REAL totally awesome _magical_ armor!”

The dragon child didn’t let Papyrus follow up with it because he leapt down off his shoulder, tripping and rolling and faceplanting into the warm orange stone ground.

“SMALL CHILD! ARE YOU HURT—? FEAR NOT, FOR I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL—”

“I’m good!” And...then he was back on his feet as if nothing happened, “Just—give me a sec—I wanna go talk to the guards yo! I’ve never met _those_ two before!”

And off he went, sprinting toward the two imposing dark-steel armored guards that blocked one of the three paths further into Hotland. Curious, Papyrus followed with equal gusto. He always loved meeting new guards! Especially since he’d be a part of their group one day! He admired their armor, at the sleek cat-like ears on the left and the insect-like helm on the right. What _would_ his armor be like? As much as he loved his battle-body, once he officially joined the guard he would likely get issued a uniform! Doggo was the only one who never bothered to wear his—even Dogamy and Dogeressa had matching suits of darksteel armor under their cloaks.

“—and don’t you get super HOT in all that armor? Issit heavy? We have guards back home but it’s suuuuper cold. Is this a normal posting for ya? D’ya ever see Undyn—”

The cat-knight pushed their way between the kid and the other guard, who continued to stand quietly, uncomfortably rubbing their glove. “Look kid, you shouldn’t be hanging around here. This road’s blocked on the captain’s order—”

“GASP! UNDYNE IS HERE?! WHERE!?”

Papyrus strode up behind the child and plucked him into the air by his shirt again, interrupting the excited hopping as the boy sucked in a breath preparing another excited wave of babble.

The cat-like knight turned her attention at Papyrus’ approach, sighing loudly, “Is this kid yours?”

Papyrus gave them—her?—a winning smile as he plucked the little lizard from the ground once more. Well. _every_ smile of his won _some_ sort of an award, but this was an _extra_ charming one.

“WE ARE TRAVELING TOGETHER FOR THE MOMENT—I HUMBLY APOLOGISE FOR MY LITTLE FRIEND! HE COULD HARDLY CONTAIN HIS ADMIRATION AND NEEDED TO RUSH OVER TO COMPLIMENT YOU ON SUCH WELL CRAFTED AND MAINTAINED ARMOR!”

“YEAH!” The kid squeaked, “It’s pretty awesome but you said UNDY—”

“The captain’s busy.”

“WE ACTUALLY DO NEED TO SEE HER!” Papyrus interrupted, “PERHAPS YOU HAVE HEARD OF ME! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, LEAD SENTRY ASSIGNED TO SNOWDIN TOWN, AND IN TRAINING UNDER UNDYNE HERSELF! THERE WAS AN INCIDENT, AND WE TRIED TO REACH HER BY PHONE, BUT SHE WASN’T PICKING UP! THIS BRAVE LIZARDCHILD HELPFULLY GUIDED ME THROUGH WATERFALL AND FROM WATERFALL TO HOTLAND WHEN WE DISCOVERED SHE WAS NOT AT HOME!”

The knight’s head turned, going from the beaming monster child back to Papyrus and then back again.

“Couldn’t you have just used the riverboat…? Look kids—” Papyrus raised a hand to protest he was NOT a kid thank you, and it wasn’t HIS fault the boat wasn’t running today. But the guard sighed before he could even get properly started. “I don’t get paid enough for this. Look, just know the captain WILL throw you out if you turn out to be wasting her time. We’re on watch for flowers, and you clearly aren’t one.”

 _Flowers?_ What did _that_ have to do with anything? Why would you need to watch for _flowers?_ Papyrus decided to ask, but then the guard finished and he forgot all about it when she stepped aside and waved a darksteel glove behind them.

“She’s in the Royal Scientist’s lab. Down that way. She’s been in a sour mood all day, so be prepared to duck.”

“OH THANK YOU SO MUCH MS GUARD LADY! WE’LL BE ON OUR WAY THEN!”

“YEAH! THANK YOU LADY!”

They were heading down the path without much further ado. The guard’s gaze lingered before she returned to her post.

“04…”

“What?”

“...thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything. You really should stand up for yourself.”

“...”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence.

 

X-x-x

_...warmth._

_The scent of cinnamon filled the air._

_“D’ya wanna buy somethi—”_

_They choked on a cloud of dust._

X-x-x

_Melodic snores drifted from downstairs._

_A tiny curious face._

_“Oh hello, welcome to Snowed Inn—”_

_A child’s wailing._

X-x-x

_Light._

_The creak of pages turning._

_“Yes, yes, we know the sign is missp—”_

_The readers didn’t notice until it was too late._

X-x-x

“I’m so SORRY Darlings, I thought you two were fans with how enraptured you seemed at my presence! One as FABULOUS as myself can’t be too careful. I _do_ get followed occasionally.”

Papyrus nodded vigorously, his jaw almost felt like it was clattering with the force of the gesture. It was—it was METTATON. Of all people!  “OF COURSE! SUCH THINGS ARE THE BURDENS OF POPULARITY.”

“Very well said, darling! You seem the type to just GET it, if you know what I mean~” The robot wheeled away from the entrance, the door sliding shut behind them with a faint _fwip_ and whirr of machinery. Papyrus followed, half giddy, half stunned. He was—this was METTATON. The most POPULAR monster in ALL of the UNDERGROUND.

Everything he’d ever wanted to be! Acknowledged! Followed! Popular!

What the _heck_ was he doing _here?_

“Looking out for an old friend of mine, darling. Why else would I be in a place as drab as _this?_ ” Mettaton gestured with a flourish, “ _Surely_ you’ve read my autobiography—remind me later and I can even get you a signed copy—but the _brilliant_ Dr. Alphys was the one to create this _lovely_ body of mine! Of _course_ I’d keep an eye on her despite her poor taste in interior decor—I keep telling _her_ that this shade of grey is just so _boring._ Could you imagine it darlings? This entire _place_ filled with COLOR—”

The robot suddenly threw out an arm, blocking the way as a curious dragon child tried to duck around him to peer up a humming escalator, “No, no, little one! The good doctor isn’t feeling well, we can’t have you barging in on her! Papy, darling—you did say your name was Papyrus right?—be a dear and keep a hold of the little scamp while I go fetch the captain—”

“I’ve already _heard_ you, Mettaton. Your dumbass voice carries even when you aren’t showing off.” Papyrus immediately snapped his head up. The upper floor was a loft-space, so above the railing was visible from below. Undyne’s silhouette was harsh against the bright ceiling lights—but it didn’t look _quite_ right. Why was she still in her ar—

_“OHMIGOD ITS UNDYNE HI!”_

“It’s the curse of being a broadcaster, I’m afraid. We just get into the habit of projecting even when not on the set. Careful there little one,” A white-gloved hand snagged the child off the floor when he tripped over his own feet in an excited rush, handing him back to Papyrus deftly. The entertainer then wheeled toward the escalator, pausing at the foot, “Have there been any significant changes since this morning?”

“None.”

“That’s a shame—my offer is still open—I can send for the best healers money can buy the moment you give the word. Healers and miracle workers—perhaps even a medium or two if necessary.”

“ **NO.** ” The force of the growl rattled Papyrus’ bones. He couldn’t see Undyne’s face from here, but he could imagine it. And it wasn’t pleasant.

“I only want to try and help her—you know that. This is a most unusual situation—”

“She didn’t even want ME down there! This isn’t something she’d want ANYONE involved in. I’m not even sure they could help her anyway! You’ve seen—”

The metal railing crunched in her trembling fingers. The dragon child whistled appreciatively.

“It—isn’t _right._ I’ve already sent for Asgore. He’ll have the final say.”

A metallic whir of a sigh. “If you insist, darling. I suppose the king is the highest authority on this...mystery project of hers. I do wish I could do something to help. I don’t like seeing my cherished friend like...this.”

“You aren’t the only one. Now get your robotic ass up here already! I ain’t leaving her alone.”

“I’ll have you know it’s a perfectly respectable _chassis_ built by our mutual friend! Being the magnanimous star I am, I shall forgive your slight and succeed the spotlight to you while you entertain your guests.”

“Just get to reading before she gets restless again.”

“Very well—the same—ah—history books as last time I assume? Ta-ta, darlings. It was a pleasure to meet you, but the duty of a star never rests!”

Once the slow-moving escalator carried the dramatically waving robot to the landing, Papyrus saw Undyne’s armored shoulders slump into a sigh. Then she backed away from the edge.  She didn’t appear at the opening where Mettaton had vanished, and for a moment Papyrus was at a loss for what to do. Should he go up to meet her? But Mettaton had specifically told the small lizard to not go up the stairs. Honestly by all rights Undyne should be coming down—

Heavy foot falls. Fast. Metal clanging against tile—

And then with a powerful grunt Undyne vaulted over the railing, dropping in a crunch of metal and tile. The lizard child wriggled and cheered, drawing the guard’s attention. Her eyes flicked to the yellow drake swinging in Papyrus’ red-gloved grip, the corners of her mouth twitching and peeling back her frown to show a glint of her wild grin.

And then it was gone again, swallowed up by ...something else. Something Papyrus had never seen on the energetic guardswoman who taught him the sacred art of making pasta through the techniques based on FIERY PASSION and EXTREME VIOLENCE.

Papyrus couldn’t even describe it. It was just so _foreign._

“Look, Pap, if you came ALL THIS WAY just because I canceled the cooking lesson—”

“OF COURSE THIS ISN’T ABOUT THE COOKING LESSON!” Papyrus interrupted, thoroughly scandalized. Did she truly think he was so thoughtless to be upset over that?

“Then why the BLAZES are you here?” Undyne roared back.

“I’M HERE BECAUSE—BECAUSE—” How to put this… “BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T ANSWERING YOUR PHONE! EVENTS IN SNOWDIN REQUIRED REPORTING AND I HAD NO PROPER MEANS TO REPORT THEM! I WAS DOING MY DUE DILIGENCE IN FOLLOWING UP! A PROPER GUARD—”

“You aren’t a guard yet Papyrus.” The growl was like a knife being twisted beneath his ribcage. He flinched, and her yellowed eyes suddenly widened. Her tense posture slumped, “Shit—sorry Pap. That wasn’t fair. It’s just been a helluva night. You wouldn’t have come all this way for nothing. What happened in Snowdin?”

“OH—YES—UH—” HE. THE GREAT PAPYRUS. Had been flustered. Impossible. This could not stand. “REMEMBER THE CASE I CALLED YOU ABOUT YESTERDAY?”

“Mmm.” She rubbed her head thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in thought, “It was a kid right? Did they ever turn up?”

“UNFORTUNATELY NOT. NEITHER THE DOGS NOR I COULD FIND ANY TRACES OF JERRY—”

“Jerry?” The lizard child piped up again, “Like the guy everyone tries to ditch Jerry?”

“WHAT? OH. YES. THAT JERRY. HIS MOTHER IS WORRIED SICK, AND EVEN HIS FRIENDS WERE STARTING TO GET CONCERNED—”

“Oh man that must be _serious_ then! Snow Drake and Ice Capp act tough but _everyone_ knows they keep an eye on him. Not that they’d ever _tell_ you that, yo. If you ask me, they always move slow enough for Jerry to catch up with them eventually—”

“K— _iiid.”_ Undyne’s hiss caught the kid’s attention and held it. He stared up at the guardswoman with shining eyes. “Yes—omigod—Undyne?”

“Mind waiting over there kid?” She gestured sharply, but pointedly away from them. The child wriggled, but then deflated as Papyrus set him gently on the floor, “Awwww…okay. This sucks yo…”

Once he was out of earshot, Undyne turned back to Papyrus, “Okay. So the kid’s still missing. Any leads?”

“WELL. NO. NOT REALLY. THE ONLY MONSTER WHO MIGHT HAVE SEEN HIM WAS THE NICE CREAM GUY, BUT I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND HIM EITHER. I’M AFRAID I’VE COVERED EVERY INCH OF THE TOWN AND THE OUTSKIRTS AND STILL NOTHING.”

“That sucks. But if even the dogs can’t find the trail there isn’t much we can do. There’s a _reason_ we have curfew during storm season, damnit! I’ll need to have a one on one talk with the other delinquents. We can’t _have_ them just wandering out of town like that. It’s _dangerous._ ”

Papyrus nodded along vigorously.

“ _YO! PAPYRUS! LOOK! YOUR HOUSE IS ON TV!”_

What!? TV? Where? He turned to try and follow the kid’s voice, but Undyne’s barked “Quiet kid!” got him back on track. “Was that it?”

“YE—NO! SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED THIS MORNING! WE HAD A CAVE IN ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF SNOWDIN, NEAR MY BROTHER’S STATION. IT WAS LOUD ENOUGH TO HEAR IN TOWN, AND DOGERESSA REPORTED IT SMELLED OF MAGIC. WHETHER OF NATURAL CAUSES OR NOT, WE THOUGHT IT BEST TO REPORT A POTENTIAL INSTABILITY IN THE CAVERN WALLS. YOU WEREN’T ANSWERING YOUR PHONE, SO THE GREAT PAPYRUS TOOK THE TIME TO BRING YOU THE NEWS PERSONALLY!”

“...goddamn it. First the snow storms, and now this? This is nerd stuff and Al—damn it. I’ll—I’ll forward the news to the right people. Thanks Pap.”

“ _Yooo guys.”_

“UNDYNE.” Papyrus hesitated, and then pressed on, asking the question that had been nagging him the entire conversation. The darkness lingering under her eyes. The distraction. The tone of her voice. The glaring lack of EXCLAMATION points, and above all, ENERGY. “DID YOU GET _ANY_ SLEEP LAST NIGHT?”

“I—”

“ _GUYS!”_

 _“_ I said to shut up kid!”

“There’s smoke yo!”

That got both of their attention. The little lizard was hopping up and down in front of a large monitor, and on that monitor was—

“OH THAT’S MY HOUSE!” He turned to Undyne, “WHY IS MY HOUSE ON THE TV?”

She shrugged. “Alphys has access to the underground’s security network. KID you shouldn’t be touching anything!”

“I didn’t yo! I swear! I don’t even have hands! The light just started blinking, and the monitor came on—”

“Undyne? Darling?” Mettaton’s strong voice drifted down from the loft above, “Something set off an alarm up here. She keeps trying to pull herself to the computer— _ssshh. Calm down darling. Calm down. It’s okay. Don’t cry Alphys darling—_ do you think you could handle it? I’ve got my, er, hands full at the morning.”

“BUT WHY WOULD IT BE _MY_ HOUSE?”

“Just look dude! There’s smoke drifting in from the left! I wonder how you could change the angle—”

“Don’t touch _ANYTHING_ kid—”

Everything dissolved into chaos. Meanwhile the plume of smoke began to thicken.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> x-x-x
> 
> A/N: Sorry for the delay! Papyrus and MK weren’t supposed to get quite as much spotlight as they did. So I cut this chapter in half. Good news is, this means the next chapter is already over half done! Huzzah!
> 
> Feel free to ask questions if you have any! Or drop any speculation~
> 
> And yes. I’m deliberately being vague about Alphys. Thank you for reading! :}


	14. Chapter 14

**A Tale of Consequences**

**Reset?**

x-x-x

Chapter 14

x-x-x

_Crack._

Frisk shivered. Sans was a warm presence at their back. They could feel the haphazard hum of his soul. Both comforting, and terrifying. Did he see? Did he hear? They were tangled up in a web of color and feeling. Could he feel the _other’s_ long dark claws reaching for them? Growing stronger, drawing them closer. Tugging and poking and prodding. Whispering.

_Crack._

_What did you think was going to happen?_

Everything dimmed, the ambient light choked out by the encroaching gloom, leaving only a faint glow from the pool of near liquid determination.

Another monster gone. Dust in the wake of their failure.

They wanted to be sick.

How many had it been? How many people could be _left?_

But it didn’t fade away like all the others. It loomed overhead like a stooping vulture.

_Crack._

Red. White. Shards glimmering in the darkness. Reduced to the breaking point and then shoved back together haphazardly.

They weren’t sure where their desperate grief and his guilt began and ended.

In the end, did it matter anyway?

_Heat._

Fire roared.

This…

 _Why hadn’t Alphys_ _warned them!?_

Even in the worst of the runs…

_Even in the worst of the nightmares…_

Everyone had been evacuated.

_He’d been able to save Snowdin._

Why—shouldn’t Alphys have been watching the cameras?

_Papyrus—_

They hadn’t seen him yet.

They didn’t want to.

 _He’d_ —they’d...warned Grillby hadn’t they?

No...no...it’d reset since then.

_Nothing ever mattered anyway._

Oily tendrils reached for them. Whispering of an end behind dusty cheeks and a knife-cut smile. That had been their face once.

**_I can handle it._ **

**_Trust me._ **

Now it was utterly alien. _A demon._

**_You won’t have to hurt anyone if it’s me._ **

**_It’s no big deal right? We’ll just restart and try the run again._ **

**_You want to know, don’t you? About Asriel?_ **

**_Maybe he’ll tell you something if you play the game his way._ **

**_What do you say?_ **

**_Partner?_ **

**_I’ll wake you if anything new happens. Just let me take care of everything._ **

**_I promise._ **

**_We’ll even make a deal._ **

**_You can choose if you think we should continue, or try again, okay?_ **

Everything just seemed to _hum_. The voice drowned out in a roar of fire. They still couldn’t see anything beyond the void, but the foreign magic swarmed, breaking against the invisible boundary at the edge of their weird little flooded island. Sans was on edge. Frisk could feel the instinctual tug, like they’d begun to recognize in that moment before he stepped.

But there was nothing to reach for. Just a vacuum of raw magic. Unfocused, it spilled into the marsh of red Frisk had already created.

_Crack._

They could feel the oppressive force bearing down on them again, battling against their concentrated determination.

Everything dissolved into a world of fire and blacked vines.

X-x-x

_Crack_

“I swear if that broke—be careful with that!” I snap at the flower as the vines withered and writhed around the jar, where the fire elemental’s magic had nearly scored a direct hit. I hadn’t even noticed him eying the burden Flowey carried slung across my back, not until I’d needed to turn to dodge a particular pattern of flames. This was _very_ different from fighting that bag of bones. He’d been very directional, as long as I kept an eye on my surroundings I could see the bones manifesting. These flames were much less rigid, changing direction and speed on almost a whim.

“I-I’m working at it Chara!” Azzy snapped back, his roots curling tighter around my upper arm and shoulder to keep his grip. I couldn’t see what he was doing. Couldn’t look because then I’d risk taking my eyes off my opponent.

That was _too_ close to be an _accident._ With a good chunk of the vines burned away, the soul within would be easy to see.

The elemental hissed and crackled. I couldn’t understand a word of it.

“Try that again and you’ll shatter it, idiot! Do you want that? HUH?” Azzy seemed to, because he bristled and shot  a hail of bullets at the elemental, who calmly flowed out of the way. Then quieter I heard in my ear, “ _Moron._ Even boss souls aren’t _red._ ”

 _“Azzy…”_ I let out a frustrated sigh, “I don’t care what he thinks it is. I heard a crack.”

That shut him up for a moment. I felt him shift, the vines tightening and loosening around my arms and shoulder as he _hopefully_ checked on the container, “No worries! It’s fine Chara. The little monarch is just throwing a hissy fit again.”

“Just keep it safe.” The last thing I needed was it breaking. It’d be a pain to try and catch them again. Maybe this was too much of a risk, keeping it with me—especially in fights where—

Another spray of flames roared over the lacquered wooden floor.

—I didn’t know their patterns.

He was _trying_ turn me around now. I only had a fraction of a moment to figure out the best way to avoid the orange and white spread of fire. Luckily orange just meant I had to be moving, but he liked to hide white bullets in with the orange. Overlapping.  _Sneaky._

I pulled a cinnamon bunny out of my pocket and scarfed it down, the magic working to put my HP back to full. I couldn’t help but be irritated. My plan had been perfect. Hit the buildings one by one, while picking off any isolated monsters along the way. I could afford to take my time. Clean up properly, and with Azzy as a lookout? The rest of the town was none-the wiser.

Until the bartender decided to set his own establishment on _fire_. I’m sure someone noticed _that_ by now.

Hmph. At least I’d already gained a few levels. I’d just have to be sneaky picking off the rest.

I just...kept moving. The flames couldn’t touch me. I danced with the fire, always keeping an eye on the elemental. He was a bright spot through the haze of smoke. The bullets I could handle. They weren’t anything special. Orange and white. Move and dodge. Move and dodge. Inch closer and closer. This burning building was as much an impediment to him as it was to me.

At least he couldn’t vanish in nary a flash of blue magic. That little trick had been the bane of my existence for far too long now.

I didn’t _have_ to worry about being quick. Unpredictable. I didn’t have to worry about sneak attacks. Or instantly having gravity changed and immediately reorienting myself as I was thrown in every directions. The flames just flowed outwards. They could change their path in a way the bones never did, but they always moved _away._

That was one thing I had learned. Find the _pattern._ Every boss had a pattern.

And maybe Grillby wasn’t a boss monster. Or even boss encounters the way Sans and Undyne were. But he was an obstacle who hadn’t trusted and been dusted. Even given my disheveled appearance, the others had all greeted me with concern and _kindness—_

It was that _kindness_ that had betrayed me, so long ago.

_“I—we only need 6 souls right?”_

They were _stupid._

So _stupid._

I was _so close._

How could they ever survive in a world filled with people like **_me_** _?_

My knife was eager in my hand. Grillby ducked another swarm of seed-shaped bullets, vanishing behind the bar.

Azzy cackled, throwing two oblong bullets into the air. They landed on the other side or polished wood. Vines erupted from the floor, long red thorns piercing soot-blacked cloth. Smoke began to rise, charring green black as flames leaked through the torn clothing.

“All yours Chara!”

The vines only held a few seconds.

That was all I really needed.

One slash. It scorched my hands as the flames flared out of the wound, curling around my knife. The elemental crackled and hissed. Azzy keened as the fire crawled up my arms eating into the roots he was using to anchor himself to my shoulders, but he had nowhere to go.

I pull back.

The second slash met no resistance, the fire crumbling away to ash. The flames clinging to the building suddenly...lost their intensity. Lost their... _spark._ A pale flickering shadow that didn’t know whether to cling to the wood or burn itself out.

I breathed it in, savoring the rush of strength that came from a boss down—the _proof_ that I’d _won—_

And then stumbled back choking on smoke, dropping my knife as my arm spasmed, the pain crackling up the limb as I came out of the pinpoint _focus_ a Fight required. It wasn’t the fire, that was gone. But I could still feel the tenderness and heat that sunk into my skin, reducing the sleeve of my makeshift robe AND my partner’s old sweater to singed yarn. I dive for another cinnamon bunny. I could feel the magic tingling under my skin as I tore it’s head off. That’d—I’d taken more damage than I’d expected—my heart was racing and it felt so _good_ and terrifying even as it echoed in my ears. It meant I was _alive._ I was _here—_

“Chara—” I stop mid gulp, lowering what remained of the confection. I stare down at it in my hand, looking between it and the blackened ash smearing my now bare arm. Ash that had been vines and roots once.

I sigh and close my eyes, ignoring Azzy’s delighted—and slightly pained—giggle as I shoved the rest  up at him.

He be no use to me whimpering the entire time. Half had been enough to ease the burns on my arms. It was fine. He’d just proved his usefulness anyway. Restraining the fire elemental had shortened the fight and likely mitigated some damage. As long as he didn’t land the killing blow he wasn’t leeching off my EXP. It wasn’t like I couldn’t grab more from the shop before I left, anyway.

...now to find my knife…

With the dying flames, the once warm and welcoming room felt eerie. Empty and blackened. Filled with ash and embers and creaking wood that crackled and popped as the weakened structure shifted under its own weight.

I saw it, the plastic a glint in the dying firelight. My ash covered fingers curled around the hilt. The weight a comfort pressed against my palm.

Azzy hissed a whispered warning. Wood _smashed_. I duck behind the remains of the bar, hiding in the pile of ash and dust that had once been Flowey’s vines and an elemental’s fire.

“ _Is anyone hurt in there! Hello!”_

The strong voice carried through the trashed dining room.

“GRILLBY!? ANYONE!?”

It wasn’t a voice I recognized. Some forgettable nobody without a name.

_This was **new.**_

My heart was trying to tear its way out of my chest.

_Fight._

_Or Flee._

The knife was eager in my hands.

But...I wasn’t at full hp. I didn’t _want_ to use another one. Not yet. Not until I got closer to that stupid turtle.

_I hadn’t saved._

_Patience._

They picked through the dining room, calling and shuffling, moving upended tables and shattered chairs and looking for _anyone_ who may be hurt—or would even be there. The moments were long, stretching to eternity as I remained huddled under the bar. Heavy hands thudded on the surface above me, the charred wood of the bar creaking and cracking under the weight, but it held. I curled tight, pulling my knees tight to my chest. I could feel Azzy’s hissing breath against my neck.

Waiting.

“Goddamn it Grillby.” The voice was low. Growling. If I hadn’t dusted them myself, I would have sworn it was one of the dogs. Were there any other dogs in Snowdin? “Why didn’t you _tell_ me it was time?!”

“Goddamn fire elemental!” The voice roared, shifting to a howling wail.

I heard them turn, glass shattering as a big clawed hand swept across the bar, throwing the a collection of soot-stained glasses to the floor.

I crept forward. Peering around the edge as the heavy footsteps stomped away.

Big. Hulking. Dark.

With his _back_ to me.

The knife was eager in my hands.

* **Determination.**

The best part? Given all the ash and soot everywhere…

I wouldn’t even need to clean up this time.

X-x-x

The smoke continued to drift by. Less now. Had it been put out? Had the fire died? Monster Kid watched, transfixed as the adults argued overhead and behind him. Not for the first time did he wish he could figure out how to change the angle. The (totally awesome) skeleton’s house was at the very edge of town. They hadn’t even seen anyone run by either. Nothing but an empty street. A cool house. And the _smoke._

Man. The _one time_ something interesting happened in Snowdin he wasn’t _anywhere_ near it. Dang it.

“Goddamn Dogamy, pick up!” Undyne looked like she wanted to throw her phone across the room. He wondered how far it would go. Probably _through_ the wall given how mad she was! It was a little scary—he couldn’t even see her pupils!—but Monster Kid just couldn’t get over the fact that she was _here_ and he got a front row seat to watch royal guard stuff! He knew it’d been the right decision to lead the skeleton around, despite the scoffing he would get from the other kids at school once they found out.

He couldn’t see why. Papyrus was pretty awesome. Ah well. They’d all be too jealous he got to see Undyne to bother making fun of him. Hah.

“HE COULD BE BUSY DEALING WITH THE EMERGENCY!” Papyrus was pacing back and forth in front of the monitor. He’d tried to run out immediately upon _finally_ registering what they were watching (god. Monster Kid had _tried_ to tell them sooner but did they listen to him? _No.)_ but Undyne had snagged him by the scarf and yelled at him for being too boneheaded-ly hasty.

“None of the others have a phone do they?” Undyne’s growl made him shiver. At least it wasn’t directed at him this time. After getting told “SHUT UP KID” three or four times now, even he got the message.

(He wasn’t going to lie, getting picked up by her when she’d caught him messing with the console was TOTALLY WORTH IT. He was never going to wash this sweater again.)

Maybe he’d ask after they finish their conversation.

“I’M AFRAID NOT. THEY TEND TO USE HOWLS FOR SHORT TO MEDIUM RANGE COMMUNICATION, EVEN THOUGH I _TELL_ THEM THAT NOT ALL GUARDS ARE DOGS! THEY ALWAYS EXPECT ME TO UNDERSTAND HOWLS AND BARKS AND OF COURSE I DO MY BEST BUT WHEN ‘DINNER TIME’ SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME AS ‘INTRUDER’ IT’S QUITE DIFFICULT FOR EVEN A SKELETON OF MY ADMIRABLE LINGUISTIC ABILITIES! EVEN DOGAMY ONLY GOT A PHONE AFTER—”

“PAPYRUS!” Woooah. The force of the shout nearly wanted to send Monster Kid tumbling backwards. Papyrus was barely rattled, though it did make him pause. Maaaaan that skeleton had to have a spine of steel in order to stand up to that glower like that! “I’m sure _someone_ in town other than you has a phone.”

“ALAS, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS, MY CONTACTS LIST IS EMPTY ASIDE FROM YOU AND DOGAMY. I SUPPOSE I COULD TRY CALLING EACH NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL WE GET SOMEONE FROM SNOWDIN—”

“NYGH . That would take too long—”

“Why don’t you just ask Alphys?”

...why were they both looking at him?

Oh. He’d said that outloud. Oops.

Might as well run with it.

“You wanna know what’s going on before charging in like heroes, yeah? So why don’t you just, ya’know, like change the camera? You said it was a security system, yo. There’s gotta be more views than that one. And you won’t let _me_ mess with it—”

“It—isn’t that simple kid.”

“Why not?” He shifted uncomfortably, “Mettaton—” God his voice just squeaked. How embarrassing, “—said she’s sick, yeah, but I’m sure if you asked she could tell you how to fix it, or do it remotely. I may not know my cousin suuuper well but I remember she had a gadget for _everything, yo_. She made the lights turn on at home whenever someone moves into the room! Isn’t that the greatest?”

And extra useful because...ya’know...no hands. His parents could use magic for some stuff, but he _still_ couldn’t figure out how to manifest properly.

...There was a reason he didn’t like school. It just...didn’t _work._ Not for him anyway.

“It’s—not that kind of sick kid.” Uh-oh. She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t looking at anyone. This wasn’t...right? Then again something had been off the whole time. This wasn’t how he’d expected his first REAL meeting with Undyne to go. Not the one that he wanted to erase from memory where he ended up face down on the floor.

Not—that kind of sick? What other kind of sick _was_ there?

Could it—had she—fallen?

Surely Undyne would have said so?

Right?

You don’t get better after having _fallen._

“UNDYNE—”

Even Papyrus hesitated. Monster Kid looked between the two. Befuddled. Confused.

This felt _wrong._ He didn’t know why. It just…

“THERE IS NO NEED TO DISTURB YOUR FRIEND. I’LL JUST—POP BACK OVER, FIND THE SENTRIES, AND GIVE THEM A DRESSING DOWN ABOUT PROPER—UH—COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL! AND IN THE MEANTIME, CHECK ON THE SMOKE. YES! THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE PERFECT PLAN. AS LONG AS YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE THIS TIME, IT WOULD ALL WORK! OR I COULD TRY AND FIND THE CAMERA THERE—” He waved at the screen with a gloved hand, “—AND GIVE YOU A BIG THUMBS UP ASSUMING ALL IS WELL! OR AN INTERPRETIVE DANCE!”

Undyne just looked so...lost. So lost and stressed. She looked like his mother did after she returned late at night. When his parents thought he was asleep and they just kind of sat together silently, tails intertwined, staring at the fireplace that kept their little house warm.

“Damn. I SHOULD be the one dealing with this.” She rubbed her head, “You aren’t a guard yet, you technically don’t have the authority—but I need to stay _here. AGH._ Asgore’s on his way already—”

“Undyne—darling—if I may interject?” Oh god it was the voice from above once again! Monster Kid wasn’t a HUGE Mettaton fan, but even _he_ knew that voice by heart. _Everyone_ did. “I know you fear the attacker returning before the king arrives, but we _do_ have two of your guards outside, along with my own not-so-inconsequential combat prowess. If your duties call you elsewhere, we can handle ourselves.”

“UNDYNE—”

“It—it isn’t just that. I haven’t seen any signs of it since I drove it off.” Undyne’s gauntlet’d fist clenched, green magic sparking between her fingers. Monster Kid held his breath. Was she—was she gonna summon her _spear?! HERE!? “_ Down there—it tried to _eat_ her Mettaton!”

“The flower?” Monster Kid could see Mettaton’s box-like silhouette on the landing above them, the lights on his console blinking with his skepticism. “I can hardly imagine a flower like the one you described eating _anyone_ much less our stout and somewhat heavy royal scientist.”

_Fwip._

“No not the damn flower, although if it ever shows up again I’m going be doing some pruning. The OTHER thing.” Undyne—was she shaking? Shivering? _Quivering_. But it wasn’t in fear. Oh hell no it wasn’t in fear. “She tried to _help_ it and it almost killed her! My spear barely even phased it. It’s still _down_ there.”

Monster Kid was enthralled.

“And you _kept_ her here!?” Mettaton was APPALLED. “No, no, no. I don’t _care_ about this mystery project of hers anymore. I’m taking her to my resort. She’ll be _far_ safer there—”

“You aren’t taking her _anywhere—”_

A faint, desperate keen filled the room. Mettaton turned immediately, wheeling back out of sight, “ _I’m sorry darling, we didn’t mean to wake you again—it’s okay. It’ll be okay—What do you need? Do you want your phone darling?”_

The response was weak. Keening.

_“...’dyne…”_

Undyne was already halfway up the stairs.

 _“Oh don’t worry darling—the captain is coming._ ”

_“...‘dyne…’dyne…’dyne...”_

Monster Kid hesitated for a moment, and then followed at a hopeful sprint. Half expecting a red glove to snatch him out of the air mid leap as he hopped onto the lowest step.

But nothing happened. He just kept going unimpeded.

Papyrus was gone.

 x-x-x Bonus scene x-x-x

“OH COME ON I KNOW YOU CAN GO FASTER THAN THIS!”

“The river flows at its own pace, tra la la~” The humming echoed from the darkened hood, “Who are we to question it?”

“WELL COULD YOU PLEASE ASK IT TO MOVE FASTER? THERE’S A POTENTIAL PROBLEM WAITING FOR ME IN SNOWDIN THAT I REALLY SHOULD TAKE CARE OF!”

“So hasty today, are we~? Always rushing towards the end. Sometimes it’s best to sit back and enjoy a lazy river~”

“BUT THAT _SNAIL_ IS MOVING FASTER THAN WE ARE!”

“Don’t worry~ we always arrive exactly when we need to.”

“UGH. I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE JUST WALKED.”

“Tra la la~”

 

**x-x-x**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> =]


End file.
